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fi COLLECTED POEMS 

J.lf OF 

I vo.^ tr ARTHUR UPSON 



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THE 



COLLECTED POEMS 



OF 



ARTHUR UPSON 



EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 

RICHARD BURTON 

IN TWO VOLUMES 

VOLUME I 




MINNEAPOLIS 

EDMUND D. BROOKS 

1909 



Copyright 1900, 1906 <rA^\ 

By Aethur Upson "T* ^3 ^ 

Copyright 1902 ,\\ s(\0 

By Edmund D. Brooks 

Copyright 1903, 1905 
By The Macmillan Company 



Copyright 1909 
By Julia C. Upson 



All rights reserved 



THE UNTVERSITY PBISS, CAMBEIDOE, U. S. A. 



LIBRARY Of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies Received 

JUN 16 18U9 

Copyriicnt Entry 



NOTE 

These collected poems include the previously published 
volumes of Arthur Upson's verse, with such exclusions as 
seemed wise, together with poems written later or for some 
reason not printed therein. 

The copyrights to certain books not published by Mr. 
E. D. Brooks were held by Mr. Upson and are now the 
property of his estate. The volume entitled "The City and 
Other Poems/' published by The Macmillan Company, has 
also been acquired by the estate. Thanks should be ren- 
dered to the "Pall Mall Magazine " of London, " The Century 
Magazine," the Minneapolis "Bellman," and various other 
American periodicals, for permission to publish the poems 
originally printed in their columns. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Volume I 



AT THE SIGN OF THE HARP 



Paoe 

Introduction xi 

Foreword 3 

'Neath the Walls of Naishapur 5 

Dust o' Books 7 

Praise of Rain 9 

" The Little White Home with 

the Lawn " 12 

Her Meclilin Eau .... 14- 
The Florentine Frame ... 15 

After the Opera 16 

A Portrait 17 

Amabel 18 

Songs 19 

I. Say, Little Maiden . . 21 

11. Gloriana 23 

III. Mein Stem .... 24. 



Paob 



Since the Children Learned to 

Sing 25 

In Memory Lock'd .... 27 

To Estelle 29 

Soul of Baza 30 



To Bertha, Sleeping . . . 


33 


A September's Day . . . . 


34. 


The Inward Service . . • 


37 


On Rock River — Evening 


39 


The Lost Brother . . . 


40 


After the Sinking of the 




"Merrimac" . . . . 


42 


The Difference . . . . 


43 


The Old Cathedral . . . 


44 


Venture 


45 


The Greater Treasure . . 


46 



WESTWIND SONGS 



I — Heaut and Soil 

Arlington 49 

Washington's Birthday . .50 
The Sequoia, "William McKin- 

ley " 51 

Benjamin-Constant's Painting 

of Queen Victoria ... 52 
Wheat Elevators . . . .53 

Failures 54 

The Sobbing Woman . . .55 

Exemption 56 

Golden Rod 57 



Gospel of the Fields . ... 58 
The Way of the World . . 59 

October Song 60 

In the Wood 61 

In October 62 

The Unforgiving .... 63 

The Two Hearts 64 

"All's Well" 65 

The Open Furrow .... 66 

An Envoy 67 

Fame 68 

Irrevocable 69 



INTRODUCTION 



Arthur Upson, — or Arthur Wheelock Upson, as he was 
baptized, — like so many western Americans, was an east- 
erner by birth. He was born in Camden, N. Y., January 10, 
1877. 

His father, Spencer Johnson Upson, was a native of Camden 
and for many years engaged in the Insurance business there ; 
a citizen much respected and prominent, who held various 
positions of responsibility in the social, political and religious 
life of the town. He was for a long time Secretary of the 
Board of Education. 

The poet^s mother was Julia Claflin of Boonesville, N. Y., 
a woman whose delicacy of nature, refinement and deep appre- 
ciation of her son's literary aspirations and later accomplish- 
ment made the bond between them peculiarly close so long 
as they both lived. 

The lad's early education was received from the Camden 
Academy and, quite as important, from the influences of a 
cultured home. Arthur was of frail body, visionary in his 
imagination but active and full of outdoor play ; he had his 
own pony to ride and grew up in an environment happily com- 
bining the country and the town. The good times were many 
in the pleasant house with its hospitable porch and ample 
grounds ; and it was but a step into all the beauty which nature 
offers man. When the boy was but nine, he lost an only 
sister (commemorated in a poem in the present volume), and 



[xii] 

the shock imperilled his life. At ten he was writing verse 
and prose ; a drama in French was the most ambitious effort, 
and all his writing showed remarkable facility in handling 
the literary forms and in the feeling for artistic expression. 
While a mere boy he drew a little literary circle around 
him, and by means of the letter exchange in " Wide Awake " 
and other children's periodicals, established a correspondence 
wliich widened his outlook and added to his power of ex- 
pression. In one instance this led to a friendship of twenty 
years with Miss Sharlot Hall of Los Angeles, whose poems 
of Arizona life are among the best that have come out of 
the West ; the two never met, and yet Miss Hall writes : 
" I doubt if there ever was such a friendship. ... He shared 
to a wonderful degree his world of books and people with me, 
and I gave him all of my desert land that I could translate.''^ 
From the ages of ten to seventeen, severe illnesses interrupted 
his school life, and it seemed doubtful if he could survive 
maturity. 

In 1893, when he was sixteen, Upson attended the World's 
Fair at Chicago ; and thence went on to the pretty Mississippi 
river town of Faribault to visit friends ; with them he also 
journeyed to St. Paul and Minneapolis, coming East by the 
Great Lakes. He was graduated the next summer from 
the Camden Academy, receiving the gold medal for the gradu- 
ating poem, and that autumn removed with his family to St. 
Paul, and entered the University of Minnesota as a member of 
the class of 1898. 

In the sophomore year his health became uncertain ; finan- 
cial reverses also came to the family. The result was that 
for four years of suspended college work Upson earned his 
living travelling about the country as a book agent ; for 
one summer he was employed as a guide in the Yellowstone 
Park, along with other collegians. Full of courage, he did 



[ xiii ] 

what was necessary, and during this period of work and travel, 
broadened his knowledge of life and continually wrote verse 
which was sent home as a sort of chronicle of his wanderings. 

The fruit of this was the first of his books of verse, pub- 
lished with the imprimatur of the University Press and called 
" At the Sign of the Harp." After a summer trip abroad in 
1900, he resumed college that autumn, and the volume ap- 
peared later in the year. That first European jaunt, keenly 
enjoyed and doing much for the young man^s development, 
brought forth some charming descriptive letters and a number 
of articles for American newspapers, as well as the poems 
which throughout his life he wrote as the most natural vent 
for his deeper self. 

The University work was pursued into the senior year, 
when the health of this brilliant collegian again interfered 
with the prosecution of his studies ; but in recognition of the 
high quality of his scholarship and his creative endeavor as 
expressed in the poem drama "The City,^^ his degree was 
granted by the college authorities, despite the technical fail- 
ure to complete his course. 

During Upson's college career the present writer became 
deeply attached to the promising young scholar poet ; he was 
handsome in person, with an air of good breeding in all his 
ways ; eager for culture, a passionate lover of literature and 
the arts ; one of those exceptionally gifted and charming 
young men it is the joy of a teacher to watch as he expands, 
and, if possible, to help in the shaping of his powers. 

He was respected and admired by his fellow students, loved 
of his intimates ; he had a genius for friendship. His quality 
in literature was recognized early by his associates, for, as has 
been said, he published his maiden book as an undergraduate. 
Various honors and posts of trust were conferred upon him 
by the college community. He was one of the committee of 



[xiv] 

three to write the class play ; he added a stanza to the Uni- 
versity Ode^ which is sung by all loyal Minnesotans. 

After graduation, he found congenial labor as an associate 
of Edmund D. Brooks, whose Bookrooms are a Minneapolis 
institution. Upson''s wide knowledge of literature and his 
taste for the niceties of bibliography made him valuable 
to Mr. Brooks, who had faith in his friend^s ability and 
published in beautiful editions several of the young man's 
volumes of verse. 

Not only did the poet develop special skill as a cataloguer, 
but to those who dropped in to price a first edition or finger 
lovingly some unique manuscript, he seemed an indispensable 
part of the Bookrooms' higher atmosphere. 

Upson was well-nigh as much at home in the domain of art 
and music as in that of literature ; his love for the art world 
brought him one of the most helpful and valuable friendships 
of his life, that with Mr. John L. Bradstreet of Minneapolis, 
widely known as an artist decorator; and his intimacy with 
Dr. Alfred Owre of the University of Minnesota, whose won- 
derful collection of cloisonne was a bond of interest between 
the two, further enriched his life, as did many acquaintances 
among musicians ; his lyrics richly reflect these interests. 

In 1906 he was appointed to a position in the English de- 
partment of the University, entering upon it in the autumn with 
high heart, for it was work he had always believed he should 
love. He did good service until the spring, when the connec- 
tion came to an end through his illness. There followed a res- 
pite for recuperation, which included some delightful months 
abroad. During this sojourn he attended the summer school 
at Jena, and afterwards took lectures at the University of 
Berlin, where he was invited to conduct conversation classes 
in English. He did not accept the offer, however, for his 
father's serious illness brought him suddenly home in Decern- 



[ XV ] 

ber, 1907; six months later, after protracted suffering, his 
father died. While abroad, he visited the quaint town of 
Pornic in Brittany, to study the legend of Gold Hair, which 
he had made the motive of his last work, " Gauvaine of the 
Retz,'' upon which he wrought with great industry and 
courage through the wearing days when his father^s sick- 
ness bore heavily on his heart. 

On his return he rejoined Mr. Brooks, giving his after- 
noons to the Bookrooms and using the mornings for his own 
literary work. He had been laboring hard on his play, when 
in mid-summer of 1908 he left Minneapolis for a vacation, 
and on the evening of August 14 was drowned from his 
boat in Bemidji Lake, Minnesota. He had that very day com- 
pleted the drama, the manuscript of which he had carried 
with him for the purpose; but it has not been found. 

During the last two years of his life Arthur Upson was 
quietly gaining recognition in his vocation of song ; his nature 
was deepening, his work was steadily of broader note and 
firmer art. A few months before his passing he was affianced 
to one who brought him sympathy and appreciation. His 
health, always precarious, seemed more constant than before. 
There was much of encouragement, a promise of success and 
happiness in the outlook. The young singer felt that his 
Rubicon was passed, victory within his grasp. But he was 
to lay down his life work at thirty-one, when the best of his 
achievement seemed to lie before him ; in the flush of young 
manhood his earthly activities ceased. Yet he left to his 
friends the memory of a nature as high, pure and noble as it 
has been their lot to know ; and to all who love poetry, a 
body of song which, it is the editor^s belief, will ensure him a 
place among the lyrists of his native land. 

Some statement as to the quality and significance of his 
work mav now follow. 



[xvi] 



n 

To deserve serious attention, a poet must have a vision 
of beauty and be able adequately to give it voice. The first 
requirement means that he must conceive life imaginatively 
and seize on its deeper significance, its spiritual values. The 
second means the possession of skill in saying his say. It 
implies a diction fit and fine, an ear sensitive to the music 
of measures and the control of form. Sometimes there is the 
gift without the skill ; sometimes the skill with nothing truly 
worth while to say. Hence a world full of haK-poets. 

Arthur Upson, it would seem, stands the twin tests. His 
poetic testament is considerable, despite his early death. 
It consists of the seven volumes published during his life, 
together with a large number of pieces printed in the present 
volumes as a final group : poems either late written or for 
some other reason not included in the previous books. As one 
reads the poetry in its due sequence, one cannot but notice 
that Upson begins to write with little of that clumsiness of 
hand common to the novitiate of any art, and that the work 
steadily gains in breadth and a truer perception of the great 
meanings of the human soul. What of limitation there may 
be in the earliest volume, for example, is surely that of depth 
rather than of technic or poetic feeling. The young verseman 
is content to sing of the lovely things he knows with delicacy, 
grace and charm. As the Eev. John W. Chadwick said on 
reading "At the Sign of the Harp," a poet judging a poet : 
" All is bright and sweet ; everywhere there is a quaintness 
and a perfume as of linen cool and lavendered ; everywhere 
a subtle and pervasive charm, a quality in the verse that is 
more than thought or form. They might have been written in 
Arcadia." And so they were ; in the Arcadia of a young man^s 



[ xvii ] 

spirit, whither he fled for solace and whence he returned to tes- 
tify thereof. Naturally, the inspiration is largely what may 
be called literary ; these early poems are bookish, as the work 
of young bards generally is. But they are their own excuse 
for being, and already promise is made of what was to come. 
Indeed, both promise and performance are in the first book. 

In the three volumes of verse which appeared in the year 
1902, this growth is clearly shown. One of them, simply 
called "Poems," and written in collaboration with a fellow 
collegian, George Norton Northrop, is tentative and experi- 
mental; chiefly interesting, perhaps, for certain attempts to 
widen his power over metres and the subtleties of tone color. 
In " Westwind Songs '' the gamut is wider, the touch firmer ; 
it is a charming collection, beyond doubt testifying to the 
maturing of the poet's gifts. The grave sweetness of " Thou 
Didst Not Die,-" the noble " Mothers and Sisters," the lyric 
cry of '^May Night," — these are widening harmonies, one 
feels. But in the third book, published, like the " Westwind 
Songs," in the autumn of that year, the progress is still more 
noteworthy in all that goes to make poetry. "Octaves in 
an Oxford Garden " possesses a distinction, a mellowness 
of thought and art, such as to set it apart. It is a group of 
some thirty lyrics registering the mood, half happy, half sad, 
of one from overseas who sits a-dream amidst the tranced and 
storied loveliness of an English university. Surely, it must 
always rank high among this young singer's production. It 
was conceived under an ancient yew in the garden close of 
Wadham College and perfectly expresses that sense of beanty 
commingled of history, nature and humanity which was char- 
acteristic of Upson. It is a thing so exquisite in execution, 
so lovely in kind, as to produce a deep, albeit quiet, satisfac- 
tion in all who respond to adequate phrasing, tender feehng 
and an unobtrusive but very potent music. 



[ xviii ] 

When two years later he published the poem drama entitled 
" The City/' he obviously gave a further pledge of his power ; 
the maturing poet turned instinctively to the most exacting 
and robust of all the forms of verse. Three poetic plays 
were completed by him : this, " The Tides of Spring " and 
the lost " Gauvaine " ; others were planned. It is evident 
that dramatic poetry was to be increasingly a favorite form of 
expression as he went on. It is entirely reasonable to believe 
that his dramatic writing would have met stage conditions 
more closely as he continued to make plays, and so done 
their part in the welcome rebirth of poetic drama in the 
English-speaking lands. The remark is all the more justified 
in the fact that " The Tides of Spring " was accepted by 
Donald Eobertson for presentation in Chicago and will have 
been presented ere these words are read. 

This first drama is one to read rather than to see, though 
strong in pictorial effects. In it the student soul is revealed 
vibrant with the sense of the beauty of ancientry ; the technic 
is firm, the blank verse, interspersed with some fascinating 
lyrics, of varied modulations and often great felicity. The 
composition exhibits a far deeper feeling for the psychological 
contrasts of human character than he had as yet shown. The 
motive is true and impressive. When that exquisite artist 
of verse, the late T. B. Aldrich, read this play, he wrote: 
"I especially admire the Scriptural piece called 'The City.' 
It is original in design and shows most skilful workmanship. 
Mr. Upson is certainly a poet of rare quality." 

The edition of " The City " published by the Macmillan 
Company the next year was augmented and enriched by a 
few added sonnets and lyrics in other forms ; then in 1907 
came the lovely Scotch history play " The Tides of Spring,'' — 
and the tale of books to appear during the singer's lifetime 
was complete. The present edition is, however, greatly en- 



[xix ] 

riched and broadened by the fortunate inclusion of a good 
number of additional poems^ often expressing the maturest of 
his thought, the finest of his art. 

For conception, construction and verbal execution it is 
hard to find a flaw in the one-act Scotch play ; a love story 
steeped in the magic of the past, highly pictorial, rich in 
character portrayal, noble and gentle in its ideals, all in a 
ravishing setting of springtime and of song, — little more 
could be asked of this kind of literature. It is interesting to 
know that it was but one of a planned series of dramas based 
on Scotch historical material, which strongly attracted the 
poet. 

And the last- written and lost play, "Gauvaine of The 
Retz,'' was, by the testimony of the privileged few who heard 
it, the best expression of the poet's maturity. It had the 
following dedication : 

" To that distinguished lover of the antique and the beautiful, 

John S. Bradstreet, 
This reading from the faded tapestries of Romance is affectionately 
inscribed." 

As the writer himself described it, it was a tragic love story 
told in dramatic form, the scene of which is laid mainly in the 
Retz country of Lower Brittany in the middle of the fourteenth 
century. The heroine, Audile, was the Gold Hair of Robert 
Browning's Story of Pornic ; the hero, Gauvaine, a young 
warrior on the side of Charles of Blois in the violent conflict 
with the Montforts for ducal supremacy in Brittany. 

The action of the piece involved an explanation of the de- 
posit of gold pieces discovered in the chateau-maiden's hair, 
on her exhumation a century or more after her death. This 
varies entirely from the " Story," in which Browning has un- 
fortunately preserved the village superstition of Audile's vulgar 



[xx] 

avarice, and varies in a manner not only intensely dramatic, 
but psychologically consistent in the working out. Besides 
a careful use of historical material, the author made special 
visits to remote and primitive parts of Celtic France, the half 
Druidical and wholly romantic scenes of which form the back- 
grounds of the story. It will be well to give here a letter he 
wrote to Mr. Brooks, in itself a charming piece of prose, for 
the light it throws upon a work which can be known only 
thus indirectly : 

Hotel Belle Vite, 

Kerhuon, riNISTi:RE, 

July 2, 1907. 

My dear Mr. Brooks, — It does not seem three weeks 
since the day I hurried over from Charing Cross, stepped from 
train to boat at Folkestone, from boat to train at Boulogne, 
rushed across Paris in a cab, and found you at Chartres, 
where, in the supper-room of the Grand Monarque, we talked 
over our plans for the next five days. 

The evening journey from Paris to Chartres seemed, at 
the time, interminable ; but I can remember only four episodes 
in connection with it : how the cabman cheated me at Mont- 
parnasse ; how at Versailles the palace and the gardens glided 
past ; how at Le Perray the frogs croaked and dogs bayed in 
the farmyards, and I came to the darker borders of twilight 
where poppies ceased to flame in the fields and the lights of 
the villages gleamed out among the poplars ; lastly, how the 
courtyard of the Grand Monarque shone cheerfully through 
rain. It was good to see you there. 

Our plans included cathedrals, chateaux, ancient walled 
cities, and even the (then unimagined) glory of Mont St. 
Michel. But it was, above all, a little fishing village near 
the mouth of the Loire, the home of Gold Hair, which 
drew us, because a certain poet had written of it and lived 



[xxi] 

there, finding much food for his philosophical fancy in its 
remote quietude. 

In the morning we loitered long in the precincts of the 
vast cathedral, marvelling at Gothic grandeur and the richness 
of painted windows. Going on to Le Mans in the afternoon, 
just as the sun was setting over the Sarthe we came unex- 
pectly upon that madrigal in stone, the hill-cresting apse of 
St. Julian's with its encircling chapels and airy buttresses. 
Next day, in the city of Geoffrey Plantagenet, we saw the 
cathedral seven centuries old, and that coeval castellated bulk 
which overfrowns the Maine, hung with soft mauve of lilas 
d'Espagne and pennoned with scarlet poppies ; from Angers 
to Nantes, where we drove through streets ancient and 
modern, and sipped after-dinner cordials to good music in 
front of that paragon of hostelries, the Grand Hotel de 
France. Then, another day, to commence auspiciously with 
a perfect cup of chocolate and that train to Pornic from which 
none warned us we should change ; the gratuitous excursion 
into Poitou, the return from Coex — Coex, with its flat, red- 
tiled cottages, and wooden ploughs, pulled by oxen — to St. 
Pazanne and its memorable dejeuner with the three jovial 
commis voyageurs ! 

Finally, at Pornic we explored steep and winding streets, 
rows of villas, lanes deep in ivy and pink locusts, fields of 
buckwheat, long white-washed walls hung with little golden 
flowers — on to Ste. Marie and the rocks that Browning 
loved. There were roses all the way to Ste. Marie, and the 
afternoon was full of soft mist, now and then shot through 
with momentary sunlight. From this "wild little place in 
Brittany," where Browning used to " walk on the edge of the 
low rocks by the sea for miles,'' we saw the fishers' sails, 
copperas-blue and rust-red, slowly drifting up the bay on the 
tide in the windless afternoon. These were the sails and rocks 



[ xxii ] 

and water which James Lee's wife knew, and this the bay of 
the philosopher in " Fifine at the Fair/' whose titanic poem is 
filled with the color and sound of what his passion clung to 
" on Pornic's placid shore, abundant air to breathe, sufficient 
sun to feel ! " 

As to Gold Hair, the maid of Pomic, whose "boasted 
name in Brittany '' Browning would not write, where else 
could she have dwelt but in the chateau whose rose-grown 
courtyard we explored ? The old church of Ste. Marie, as we 
knew from Browning's letters, has been torn down and sup- 
planted by a smart new one. But in the new one there is 
preserved the ancient knight in stone of which Touchard- 
Lafosse, the antiquarian, wrote in 1840 : 

" He has the costume of a knight. It is a large rock 
placed on a level with the ground, on which is sculptured the 
said figure in relief. There are around it Gothic characters 
which no one has been able to interpret. The costume of 
the knight and the form of the characters should refer the 
monument to the thirteenth or fourteenth century." 

Touchard-Lafosse describes tlie old church, only lightly 
alluded to in Browning's letters ; and it was from his monu- 
mental work, " La Loire, Historique, Pittoresque et Biograph- 
ique " (Nantes, 1840-45), that I received the clues for certain 
descriptions in this dramatic romance. If Gold Hair was 
laid in the chancel or near the altar of the old church of Ste. 
Marie, her family must have had large means to pay for the 
honor, and if they were of Pornic, as the story goes, my 
assumption that they were the people of the chateau is most 
likely to be correct. 

After we had visited the chateau, and while we were 
driving on the opposite side of the bay from which is had 
the loveliest view of it and of the rock-built village, we 
talked about the first scenes of this story of mine. I had 



[ xxiii ] 

read them to you on the train from Coex to St. Pazanne, and 
you had applauded. But we saw that, in fact, the chateau 
was differently situated from the manner in which I had de- 
scribed it, and that the church of Ste. Marie was further from 
it than my requirements demanded. 

We agreed there at Pornic that one may rearrange for 
dramatic purposes, and thereby heighten, so far from lessen- 
ing, the effect of truth. I shall continue in this way until 
the piece, which now rests as you saw it, is finished and in 
the hands of the printers. 

The view across the estuary of the Lauderneau, from 
where I write, is so beautiful that I wish you and other good 
friends could share it with me. Eain has left a silver mist 
over the green slopes of the hither shore, which throws into 
double perspective the gigantic granite rocks across the 
passage on the Plougastel peninsula. But the sun is fidl 
upon the face of earth and waters, and shines splendidly 
along my terrace. Far away on the other side of the long 
hill the village of Plougastel is basking; her church spire 
just arises above the ridge. I spent five days in that still 
Breton commune, and my story has taken fuller shape there 
among the somber-minded peasants, whose strange rites I 
have seen on the Eve of St. Jean and at the Pardon of 
St. Pierre. 

These lines pursue you to the western rim of the Ameri- 
can continent, with many good wishes and pleasant memories 
of days in Brittany together, and of many other days in our 
well-loved city among the Minnesota lakes. 

ARTHUR UPSON. 

But what now, looking at Upson's work as a whole, are 
those distinctive qualities which mark him out from other 
followers of the Muse? That he loved to build the lofty 



[ xxiv ] 

rhyme, and earnestly pursued Beauty, none knowing his life 
will gainsay. But this is not enough. I have already ex- 
pressed the conviction that he did more, that his verse is 
poetry in the larger, more permanent sense. 

These qualities come out plainly, I think, from a thought- 
ful acquaintance with the body, of his work. He had, as has 
been said, a firm grasp on the materials of his art. His 
technic was not timorous; it does not illustrate the slavish 
obeyance of rules, but the rejoicing freedom of the artist who 
realizes the truth of Goethe^s saying that it is within the 
confines of law that liberty is to be found. Upson^s verse 
abounds in those artistic irregularities which delight the 
connoisseur. Take, for instance, the fine line of "Tragic 
Winds,'' 

" Viols throbbing out some earth-impassioned hymn," 

and note the surplusage of syllables, the cumulative effect of 
music. Such lines, scanned by the rule of thumb, are imper- 
fect; rightly heard, they are rhythmic triumphs. 

Whether in the delicately intricate forms like the sonnet, 
in the art-concealing art of the song, or when the more virile 
demands of the drama with its medium of blank verse con- 
front him, the difficulties are easily met and beauties take 
their place. Technic should be simply a deft, hidden way 
to produce a result, not a thing to parade for its own sake. 
Never, except in work so early as to be discarded by his 
judgment, did he err in this discrimination. Hence, his verse 
is conserved by his mastery of the ars poetica. 

Another trait which makes his work admirable is the hu- 
manity, the love for fellow man which pulses through the 
song, growing notably strong at the close. Naturally, at 
first it is less general, expressed more often in some love 
lyric where the chosen one is addressed, or when friendship is 



[ XXV ] 

lauded. Later, this note becomes broader and deeper, until 
you hear in it a universal sentiment, the spirit of such a 
poem as " The Sons of Men." 

This fine, fraternal note clarifies and gives red blood to 
work that otherwise, because of its delicate art and aloofness 
from vulgar and obvious themes, might have failed to reach 
a general audience. 

It should be added that the sweetness and sanity of the 
song are notable characteristics. Often subtle in form and 
feeling as it may be, there is an underlying common-sense, an 
insistent and instinctive avoidance of anything morbid or de- 
generate ; nay, more ; there is the frequent play of a charm- 
ing, sunny humor when in lighter moods the poet depicts 
the gladness and grace of life. Alleviations come to him by 
way of human intercourse, through the gentle ministries 
of nature, or from the divinating whispers of the soul; he 
translates them for our pleasure. The verse is never misty, 
meaningless, pessimistic. Of course it has, at times, the ex- 
quisite sadness of all true poetry ; a poet is a poet, among 
other reasons, because he feels more keenly than is common 
the dissonance between our dreams and our doings. But 
whoever turns to Arthur Upson's writings for the bizarre and 
the dubious will be disappointed. His appeal is to that 
robuster taste which outlasts mere literary fashions. 

Last of all, and best of all, permeating this work like an 
atmosphere, is its spirituality. Upson bravely accepted the 
facts of life and showed their symbolic significance. He 
realized that the test of living is soul growth, that we are 
here on a battle ground where victory is for him whose char- 
acter is strengthened by the struggle. He lets us hear, above 
the din of conflict, and set to luring music, the " still small 
voice " that speaks the coveted " well done." While enam- 
oured of beauty that is of the eyes, he is aware that the high- 



[ xxvi ] 

est beauty is of the soul ; that the phrases " the holiness of 
beauty '' and "the beauty of holiness^' are interchangeable. 
In lyrics like " To a Poet/' " The Eival Quests " and many 
another we feel that we are getting more than phrasing and 
melody and the deft handling of forms ; namely, a message 
for the spirit; that here again poetry, the divine art, is 
justified of one of her children. 

In a word, Arthur Upson is an aristocrat of verse, whose 
song has in it somewhat of seership. So it must appear to a 
contemporary. For this very reason he was less known at 
his death than might have been, had his appeal been of the 
catchpenny kind. But already his own sort knew him ; warm 
words of appreciation have been spoken by Mr. Stedman, 
Mr. Gilder, Mr. Aldrich and yet others. Wrote Mr. Aldrich 
in a private letter : 

" I am afraid he is too fine for immediate popularity ; but 
that does n't matter. It is not the many but the few that give a 
man his place in literature. The many are engaged in canning 
meat and manipulating pious life insurance companies." 

Time, the great corrective, will take care of that. Mean- 
while, here is the work, with its wistful loveliness, its quiet, 
unprotesting, unsensational perfection, its touch of the pathos 
which must inevitably hover over the incomplete, its lasting 
dower of Beauty. Such a message may always be thankfully 
received, whether from the hand of one of the masters whose 
position has long been assured, or from one nearer, and less 
clearly seen because so close, whose tongue nevertheless is 
touched with the same sacred fire : 

" Here a boy he dwelt, through all the singing season, 
And ere the day of sorrow departed as he came." 



AT THE SIGN OF THE HARP 



I 



FOREWORD 

BY A REGULAR LODGER 

The Gentle Reader shall labor under no Misappre- 
hension : the Verse in this Book disclaims the lofty 
title and rank of Poesy. It is, as it were, a Record 
of Echoes from many-keyed Melodies heard by a 
back-stairs Lodger in an old rambling Inn. This 
Inn is one not come upon in the main Thoroughfare 
and for that reason those who haunt its Chimney 
Nook find perennial Charm in the quaint Restful- 
ness pervading it. 

Down a green Yew Lane a Sonnet's length, or 
thereabouts, from the Highway, one discovers the 
brown, moss-edged gables of the Harp Tavern, whose 
Rafters have rung with sweetest Music from the days 
of Sidney and Spenser to our own. It cannot escape 
one, for the Lane turns at the Tavern Gate and then, 
too, there is the ancient Sign. It is a place of Solace, 
tidy Hearths and rare Bread and Ale ; and so sweet 
is the Companionship withal, that many a day the 
present Scribe has overtarried there, to the sad neg- 
lect of his proper Duties. 

A Winter's Night there, my Masters, is good for 
the Soul of Man ! A roaring Fire of oaken billets 



[4] 

attracts its circle of Deep Chairs and into each Chair 
is sunken a Contented Guest. Nightlong a whim- 
pering Wind is at the Casement ; nightlong the Sign 
on its hinge and the ancient Yews groan together, 
and the girders of the sturdy Hostel crack in the 
tightening clutch of vindictive Frost. The housed 
Heartlover is wrapped in a Luxury these contrasting 
Asperities of the Season serve to intensify, for whilst 
the Brook in the Meadow becomes hard and still 
without, congealed Springs of Song melt delight- 
somely within; Mugs go round; Talk babbles on, 
till at length one retires drowsily happy into some 
lavendered Chamber of Sleep. 

Prom time to time these Pieces were dropped into 
an old Portmanteau which had become so stuffed 
with the ilk that the Jaws of the distorted Receptacle 
refused to meet. For no other reason, therefore, 
than to relieve the Poor Thing of its Embarrassment, 
have these been taken out and done into a little 
Book. And if this be not reason enough, why, 
then, those who read it may invent more; for the 
World still has a Pew not grown too busy to nurse 
the old Love, frank and warm, for their accustomed 
Chimney Corner at the Sign of the Harp. 



[5] 



'NEATH THE WALLS OF 
NAISHAPUR 

" A JUG of wine, a loaf and thou " — 
Oh, to sit beneath the bough 
Singing in the wilderness, 
With a southern breeze to bless 
Book and bloom and purple lure 
'Neath the walls of Naishapur ! 

Oh, to feel the subtle Spring 
Rouse the fire in everything, 
As she once in Khorassan 
Round the old rose-gardens ran. 
Keeping with the Poet-wooer 
Her sweet trjst at Naishapur ! 

Roses turn a tenderer red — 
Once they circled Omar's head ; — 
Southwinds fetch a plaintive psalm 
Prom the shrine of old Khayyam, 
Taught them on some pilgrim tour 
By nightingales at Naishapur. 



[6] 

Otherwhere the Springtime may 
Leave her old familiar way, 
And the nightingale forget 
How to sing an eyelash wet — 
But the scent and song endm-e 
'Neath the walls of Naishapur. 

Life were life enough to close 
With a quatrain and a rose ; 
Death were death enough to be 
Shut away from such as he 
Who for both found ample cure 
'Neath the walls of Naishapur. 



[7] 



DUST O' BOOKS 

Slantwise one long starbeain finds 
Access through the jealous blinds, 
Lingeringly, lance at rest 
On the Poet loved the best, 
Feeling softly down the shelves 
Where my books reveal themselves ; 
And, beneath its trembling glow, 
Taint, fine blooms, like plam-mist show 
Bust Books, I love you so / 

Wrecks of olden minstrelsy 

When the lilting tide is lee. 

Ride at flood into our cove 

To protest unaltered love ; 

Or, difi'used into the night. 

Some sweet Spirit of the Past, 

Poising in an airy flight. 

Doth behold a home at last 

Here with books he fathered when 

He was tangible to men 

— Mew /lis soul up in some sphere 

When he might be basking here ! — 

Now the Lady Moon looks in, 

Searching with her finger thin 



[8] 

To detect the gentle fluff 
Prom some rose of long ago, 
Whicli, once found, doth seem enough 
To provoke her tenderest glow — 
Bust Books, she loves you so ! 

Watch Diana set the name 
Of her lover-bard aflame, 
Through the casement golden streets 
Flooding to the name of Keats ! 
And the silken dust she tries 
That on my table-Browning lies. 
Pollen of the Reddest Rose 
Our Parnassus-garden grows. 
Dust ? Nay, their own ashes rest 
On the works their love caressed : 
Out of linen and levant 
Thoughts of masters emanant, 
Prom the outer wash of air 
Their sweet ashes settled there ! 
This is creed to all of us 
And dust of earth, unluminous, 
Hath no gold like this we know 
Of an otherworldly glow — 
Bust d Books, we love you so ! 



[9] 



PRAISE OF RAIN 

I LOVE the rainy day, the quiet room, 

The books, the pictures and the glowing fire j 
I love the nursing of a dear desire 

And all the fancies weaving in the gloom. 

I love the daylong woodland wind anear 
Down sodden slopes and dripping avenues ; 
For, come the twilight, he hath tuned the flues 

Into sweet panpipes, wonderful to hear. 

I love the friend that reads to me again 
Old stories 'mid the soothing monotone 
Of singing flame and eave-caught sprites that moan 

And murmur through the lisping of the rain. 

And each pale joy the dreary day unnests 
Is driven within the compass of this hall 
Where, fearing still the Autumn's hunting-call. 

They hide themselves within our warming breasts. 

Ere evening lamp is brought and while along 
The flrelit floor dance faeries of the grate, 
There comes a museful interpause : I wait 

And tap the pane and hum a twilight song : 



[10] 

The day is dying, 
The rain is kind, 

Leaves are flying 
Before the wind. 

Drops are blotted 

Upon the pane, 
Red leaves have spotted 

The swimming lane. 

The rain is gentle ; 

It brings to me 
A transcendental 

Ecstasy. 

When it is hushing 
I hear the wind : 

This storm a-rushing 
Is kind, is kind. 

It is kind to the reader ; 

It brings to him 
The sough i' the cedar. 

The creak o' the limb. 

The pool-caught splatter 
Of storm-pluckt cones. 

The wind's wet patter 
On pavement stones 



[11] 

That rise in the darking 

Chill of night 
To meet him harking 

In warmth and light. 

And in it there lingers, 

Above, below, 
Touch of rain fingers 

In tremolo. 

These days are after 
Old ways of years — 

Within is laughter, 
Without are tears ; 

Within is greeting, 
Without, the rain — 

And hearts are beating 
Both sides the pane. 

Now dim are tracing 
Of twig and tree ; 

The fire on the casing 
Shines ruddily. 

Leaves go flying 
Before the wind ; 

Day is dying. 

The rain is — kind ! 



[12] 



"THE LITTLE WHITE HOME 
WITH THE LAWN " 

" Tlie Little White Home with the LawUy* 
It is ever so far away, 
But into its midst I am drawn, 

By the sweetness it seems to emhay. 

I KNOW it though I have not seen 
Even its fringe of leafy green : 
A little stoop with roses tied 
Along its benches either side, 
In-latticed cosily with vines 
Wherethrough the morning thinly shines ; 
Above, a classic pediment 
Along whose stately Doric lines 
Lurks consciousness of high descent ; 
A tar-walk swerving to the gate 
Where tall syringa chaplets wait, 
Underneath whose emerald line, 
Tay-filched from a thorn-tree's stores, 
Atalanta's apples shine 
Luresome down the fairy course. 
(Are there nightly races run 
With some sprite Milanion ?) 



[13] 

This is every whit a home, 
Just the place a heart would come 
With its sorrow and its pain, 
From the city's toil and stain — 
Just the place a heart might stay 
And lark it through a summer day. 
I have not seen it, yet I know 
That it stands and waits me so. 



[14] 



A RONDEAU ON HER 
MECHLIN FAN 

Her Mechlin fan night after night I dare 
And graciously each night she holds it there 
As some proud queen a scepter to her slave 
Might lift to reassure the trembling knave. — 
Paith, and it well becomes her noble air I 

Oh, 't is a wee thing : ivory mounts with rare 
Light wreathings a Titania might wear ; 
But ah, it wields a fate in every wave, 

Her Mechlin fan I 

Were I to dash to bits this slim affair 

And, staking all, my mutiny declare, 

What might I gain ? — the welcome that I crave, 
A tear-washed haven or a smile-sunned grave ? 

(In either case I 'd have to buy somewhere 

A Mechlin fan !) 



[15] 



THE FLORENTINE FRAME 

By the walls of old Firenze, 

Loved of Fra Angelico, 
Through what summer necromancy 

Did the carver-poet go 

When, this tender wood selecting. 

He so deftly in their place 
Wrought these gracile forms, perfecting 

Such a frame for such a face ? 

Or, amid sweet shadows moving 

On the heights of Fiesole, 
Carved he thus his heart's great loving, 

Tendrilwise, rememberingly ; 

While below through leafy lattice 
Shines the Arno to the sea — 

Westward to the maiden that is 
Smiling from her shelf on me. 

Had he caught a premonition 
Of these features, carving so. 

He 'd have sought no saintlier vision 
Of the good Angelico 1 



[16] 



AFTER THE OPERA 

Curtain and the moment's pause, 
Then the stirring of the crowd 

And their chatter, but there was 
Still the music crying loud — 

Violins that never had 

Seemed to me so tender-mad. 

True, the orchestra was gone 
And the people and the light. 

But the music sounded on 
As I rode into the night — 

Violins and Elsa's face 

Prayed across the starlit space. 



[17] 



A PORTRAIT 

Erewhile in a dream I saw 

Fleetingly, a face. 
And on waking tried to draw 

Something of its grace ; 

But the lines my patient pen 
Traced across the sheet. 

Could in no wise fetch again 
Features half so sweet. 

Haunted years that hurried round 
Ne'er an answer brought. 

Till I saw this face and found 
More than all I sought. 



[18] 



AMABEL 

Last night when day had sunk to rest 

And he was waiting at the gate, 
When tenderly against his breast 

He felt her pulses palpitate, 
There stood in heaven a wondering star 

That gazed and gazed at Amabel, 
Till, drunk with love, it leaned so far 

It lost its parapet and fell. 

Then through the balsams came the breeze, 

And all the little sounds of night. 
Each singing that her heart was his 

And humming in a long delight. 
The word was trembling on his tongue — 

He tried but could not say farewell ; 
How could he leave while heaven swung 

One star that winked at Amabel ! 



SONGS 



[21] 



SAY, LITTLE MAIDEN 



Say, little maiden with dewdrop eyes 

Caught in a moonbeam's silver trace, 
What is the meaning of this surprise 

Written across your lily-face ? 
Thrice has the cricket said good-night 

In the sleepy valley below you there, 
And still I look at the starry light 
That gleams in your golden hair. 
Maiden ajloat on the emerald stream 

Of the mighty Slmnher Sea, 
In all of the beautiful dreams you dream 
Is there one little _place for me? 

II 

What do you see in the wonderlands 
Along the starbright thoroughfare. 

Led by the touch of spirit hands, 

And what do the spirits whisper there ? 



[22] 

Are there silver worlds we know not of 

They lead your immaculate soul among ? 
Are there songs they sing of an unknown love 
That never on earth were sung ? 

And do they as they hang der the bloom-set 
stream 
To loop you a diadem, 
Ask, too, if in all of the dreams you dream 
Perchance there is one for them ? 



[23] 

II 
GLORIANA 

In a country of moonshine and shadow, 

Dwelt a maid 'neath a mistletoe bough, 

And her hair went in folds of rich auburns and golds, 
Like a sunset wound over her brow. 

Gloriana, how I love you ! 
Won't you, won't you promise to be mine ? 

Stars are dim to-night above you, 
Gloriana, how you shine ! 

Each night as she tripped through the valley, 

The moon on the tip of the fir 
Wove itself a pale shroud out of shimmering cloud 

And left all the shining to her. 

Gloriana, how I love you ! 
Won! t you, won t you promise to be mine? 

Stars are dim to-night above you, 
Gloriana, how you shine! 



[24] 

III 

MEIN STERN 

Du, Du bist meines Lebens Stern, 

So hell und rein bist Du ; 
Du strahlst mir durch die Wolken fern 

Mit sanftem Leuchten zu, 
Und ich, ich folge bis ich lern' 
Der Liebe heil'ge Ruh'. 

TJnd ueheraU wohin ich geJi , 
In Feld und Thai, auf Berg und See, 
Mit ivunderbarem Sternenschein 
Du segnest mir das Lehen ein ! 

Es giebt Nichts in der ganzen Welt 

So schoen wie dein Gesicht 
Das auf den Weg so lieblich faellt 

Mit heitrem Himmelslicht ; 
Auf Berg und See, in Thai und Feld 
Die Glorie fehlt mir nicht. 
Denn ueherall wohin ich geJi , 
In Feld und Thai, auf Berg und See, 
Mit wunderbarevi Sternenschein 
Du segnest mir das Lehen ein ! 



[25] 



SINCE THE CHILDREN LEARNED 
TO SING 

(TO A TEACHER) 

No more in wide and tuneless ways 
Does wistful childhood throng, 

Or file as in the other days 
In voicelessness along ; 

Por now the smile of service plays 
Upon the lips of song ; 

And, down those deep recesses whence 

A child his love may bring, 
There streams a silver opulence 

Of voices carolling, 
Since by your music's eloquence 

The children learned to sing. 

Of all the lovely lore that slips 

Into a childheart so, 
The songs that linger on the lips 

And sweeter seemed to grow, 
Shall be first come of comradeships 

And prove the last to go. 



[26] 

And thus, of all the after-bloom 

Their thoughts will backward fling 

When larger tasks their place assume 
And memory voices ring, 

The best will be for you of whom 
The children learned to sing. 



IN MEMORY LOCK'D 

" Ophelia — ^Tis in my memory lock'd 
And you yourself shall keep the key of it," 



[29] 



TO ESTELLE 

Sweet, for the days that were I 'd give 
All the days that are yet to live ; 
For the bloom once lining the deep, white tree 
I 'd barter the fruit of the years to be — 
For the first blush-petals that drift and blur 
In the old dear days that were. 

Sweet, for the days that were I 'd thread 
The maze of the years unanswered, 
If, in those shadows and after all, 
I could hear thy whisper return my call. 
Or the satin sound of thy nearing stir. 
Just once, as in days that were. 



[30] 



SOUL OF BAZIL 

I 
There she lay so still and white 
In the tender folds of night, 
Three white tapers at her head 
Lighted for the saintly dead, 
Over which methought did shine 
Yet another, light divine, 
Brighter and more calmly clear — 
Soul of Bazil hovering near. 

II 

Soul of Bazil, white and whole. 
In upon our sorrow stole 
As, beside the wreathed pall, 
We were watching ; and a call 
Half a whisper, half refrain 
Of some wondrous angel-strain 
Low but clear, suffused the gloom 
Of the consecrated room : 

" / am resting, resting ivell — 
Should gou weep for this ? 

Could gou grasp it I loould tell 
WJiat mg welcome is!' 



[31] 

III 
Roses grew beside the wall 
To twine her resting place withal ; 
Violets in whispering bands 
Bloomed for Bazil's folded hands ; 
Someone wrought these candlesticks 
And the clasped crucifix 
Just to light her home a way, 
Just to lift her into day. 

IV 

Not forgotten, little one, 
Shall the works be you have done ; 
Toiled nor these frail hands in vain 
Nor the weary woman-brain 
Dwelling in the troubled head 
That is now quite comforted ; 
Little child, the hearts you knew 
Now are images of you ! 



Roses that remember well — 
Violets that used to tell 
All about you, each to each, 
Needing so no priest to preach — 
Carved cross and candles — all 
Evermore upon you call ; 



[32] 

And, self-answering, seem to say 
To us wlien we bow to pray : 

" She is resting, resting well — 
Should you weep for this? 

Could you grasp it she would tell 
What her welcotne is." 



[33] 



TO BERTHA, SLEEPING 

(B. E. C, DIED IN PARIS, AUGUST, 1898) 

Home at last from the overseas, 

Ah, Bertha, what welcomes strange are these I 

Strange yet tender, and sweeter far 

Than all of our mortal welcomes are ; 

Arms are open, arms cool and deep ; 

Kisses are given, the kisses of sleep. 

Tenderly there in the dear home sod 

Are resting your feet where of old they trod ; 

Folded your hands in the meadow where 

They gathered the daisies ; — and loosed the hair 

Where over and over the breeze may tell 

How lately it loved those riches well. 

Ah, but the eyes that I used to know 

And the lips that were smiling, are smiling so ! 

Even your laughter and lilt and bloom 

Tollow you down to the restful tomb. 

Warm, happy France ! 'T is the land for you 

To have sought the gates of the Happier through. 



[34] 



A SEPTEMBER'S DAY 

(FORT SNELLING) 

I HEARD the river past the fortress sing 
When the wide woods were faintly yellowing, 
And up the hills and through the autumn air 
The blur of dreams was drifting everywhere. 
The wind caught up a wandering bugle tone 
From the green court of some far barrack blown. 
Whose startled echoes, over tower and tree. 
Pelted from cliff to cliff right silverly. 
Past many a rocky headland toward the town 
The Mississippi swept benignly down. 
His wimpled waters glassing brokenly 
Red leaves and gold and sunny fields of sky. 

Crowning the southern brink, against the wood 

The old, six-sided tower is cameoed. 

Guard of the dim horizon's level sweep. 

Gray sentinel of a valley, still and deep. 

Along whose leaf}'- lap, half hidden, glide 

The sun-kissed waves of Minnesota's tide. 

Verging the further heights, Mendota lifts 

Her quaint, brown gables through the woodland rifts ; 

And over all the scene there seems to play 

The mellow light of some lost Yesterday. 



[35] 

I leaned far out against the sightly wall, 
To hear the wild birds through the valley call. 
And, from the woodbine on the parapet 
That wreathed in many a windy coronet, 
I heard, or in my daydream thought I heard, 
The reminiscent carols of a bird 
Singing me such faint music as would fit 
Into the delicate thought preceding it : 

September is her same old self, 
Carmine, gray and gold again, 

As she down the foreland shone 
Fourscore years ago and ten. 

Here the Island breaks the stream 
And the mingled waters flow 

On together as they ran 
Ninety years and more ago. 

Still the ragged ledge is cut 
On the amber Autumn sky. 

And the melancholy breeze 
Whispers echoingly by. 

Still the maple twigs are traced 
On the limestone buttress sharp, 

And the oak leaves flutter down 
From the russet counterscarp. 



[36] 

But the hands that patient wrought 

In the wildernesses then, 
Shaped their own oblivion 

Pourscore years ago and ten ; 

Now their man-forgotten names, 
Once within the valley said. 

By the woodland birds are sung. 
By the breeze remembered. 

There are forms along the wall. 
Footprints in untrodden ways, 

Sounds the busy morning winds 
Up around the treetops raise. 

Does the lonely sentinel, 
To his lofty beat confined, 

Hear or see these traces ? Nay, 
Man alone is deaf and blind. 

But the hands that patient wrought 
In the unblazed wilderness, 

Nature, through the bird and breeze. 
Doth forever repossess. 

September is her same old self. 
Carmine, gray and gold again, 

As she down the foreland shone 
Fourscore years ago and ten. 



THE INWARD SERVICE 

" Laertes — For Nature, crescent, does not grow alone 
In thews and hulk ; but as this temple waxes, 
The inward service of the mind and soul 
Grows fvide withal." 



[39] 



ON ROCK RIVER — EVENING 

On sucli a river, in such a night 

As hfted old longings up to light, 

In the liquid, low, melodious sound 

Of oars and waters inter wound. 

In the stars' young lights that shimmered by 

Through underchannels of changing sky. 

Like those of some strange lantern feast 

On sacred rivers of the east — 

A man might throttle earth's whimpering blight. 

On such a river, in such a night, 

And half his battle and all his care 

Might dwindle into the shadows there. 

By some still river such as this, 

Ruffled by a zephyr-kiss, 

Turning ever so the eyes 

Rest where new embankments rise ; 

Sanctified from daylit streams 

By a holy touch of dreams. 

And trailing on her trembling breast 

The lingering opal of the west — 

Let life regain her emphasis 

By some still river such as this. 

Whilst half the battle and all the care 

Dwindle into the shadows there. 



[40] 



THE LOST BROTHER 

Palters now the storm-song, 
Winds are a- waning, 

Only the steady rain 

Keeps on complaining. 

Throw up the blinds now, 
Fetch me the candles ; 

Hark ! 't is a footstep. 

Touch of his sandals. 

List ! ah, an Someone come 
Out of the storming. 

He will find welcome here, 
Welcome and warming ! 

Hushed is the wind-song. 
Silent remaining — 

Only the mournful rain 

Keeps on complaining. 

Were he to come to-night. 
Brother and brother, 

Heart warm to heart warm, 
Forgiving each other — 



[41] 

Were he to follow 

The light I am placing, 
Up through the darkness 

My woodpath tracing. 

• ••••• 

Dead is the rain-song. 
Silent remaining ; 

Only a lonely soul 

Keeps on complaining. 



[42] 



AFTER THE SINKING OF THE 
"MERRIMAC " 

(1898) 

Quite simply do the Great-at-Heart 

Their creed of hfe confess 
They pray no chance, they know no art 

Save Self-forgetfulness. 

No casual hand of favoring Fate 
Doth kindle life's high star ; 

'T is true we may not all be great. 
But more can be than are. 



[43] 



THE DIFFERENCE 

The Virtuoso dined with friends 
And made them serve ambitious ends ; 
He shaded off his tones a bit 
To bring them to his patrons' wit. 

The Second Fiddle, all alone, 
Searched his Amati tone by tone, 
Dwelling apart because he found 
No voices like his fiddle's sound. 

Both had the skill of equal pains — 
Only the former's name remains. 



[44] 

THE OLD CATHEDRAL 

Moquent of the Evermore 

The old cathedral calmly stands 

And blesses, as with outstretched hands. 

The city j)lodding past its door. 

The furrowed steps, the walls' gray stone. 
The arched windows, plain and high, 

That snatch white squares of sunlight down 
Prom the brimmed bosom of the sky, 

Are symbols of the hoary faith 

Whose steps lead up a footworn way, 

And through whose misnamed window, Death, 
There glances the abundant day. 

Within, vague whisperings of hope 
Go trembling by where, echo-trod, 

Prayer-crowded incense pathways grope 
Their dim way upward unto God. 

Though priestly chant may backward roll, 
Heavy with weight of conscious bass, 

The faltered prayer of one faint soul 
Mounts the light incense to His face. 

Here the mute, quivering heart may rest, 

However slight its wisdom be. 
And beat its cares out on the breast 

Of an omniscient Sympathy. 



[45] 



VENTURE 

Where such haze as light winds carry 

Up the eviternal blue 
Cuts the orbit round his eyrie, 

Fearlessly the eagle flew : 
Soul, why in thy cloudlet tarry, 

When a stroke would wing thee through ? 



[46] 



THE GREATER TREASURE 

My rarest Quarto, to have been 
With Chaucer at the Tabard Inn 
When April with her showers sweet 
Spread blossoms for the Pilgrim's feet ! 

My choicest Sevres, to have heard 
Poor Palissy's ecstatic word 
When, after years, the sullen kiln 
Responded to his patient skill ! 

My Stradivarius, to know 
The Master's thought when, long ago 
In quaint Cremona, first there came 
The intimations of his fame ! 

My all — books, porcelain and Strad, 
Por something sweet these craftsmen had : 
The Poet's spirit, blithe and true, 
The patience of the other two ! 



WESTWIND SONGS 
I 

HEART AND SOIL 



[49] 



ARLINGTON 

No tap of drum nor sound of any horn 

Shall call them now from this unbattled height. 
No more the picket dreads the traitor night, 

Nor would the marcher tired delay the morn. 

Fell some upon the field with victory torn 

Erom weakening grasp ; and some before the fight, 
Doomed by slow fevers or the stray shot's spite ; 

And some old wounds through quiet years have worn. 

And all are folded now so peacefully 

Within her breast whose glory was their dream — 
From her own bloody fields, from isles extreme, 

From the long tumult of the land and sea — 
Where lies the steel Potomac's jewelled stream 

Like the surrendered sword of Memory. 



[50] 
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY 

(The first celebration in the new century) 

Earth, that hast countless aeons of swift days 

Spun from thy poles — and like a mote been 
swirled 

Fleet years about thy Master Orb — and hurled 
With all thy starry fellows into space 
Silent and irresistible on the face 

Of heavens and of heavens' heavens unfurled — 

And yet remainest our remembering world, 
Our kindly home and our familiar place, — 
Thou dost not fail, sweet, immemorial Earth, 

To number o'er thy sons that were thy kings ; 

Chants royal raisest thou among the rings 
Celestial of old stars for their great worth 
Whose birth was not as is our common birth. 

But was foreplanned with elemental things. 



[51] 



THE SEQUOIA, 
"WILLIAM McKINLEY" 

(CHRISTENED OCTOBER 21, 1901) 

He who in dying blessed the peaceful trees 
That lulled the slow grief of the lapsing year 
Towards tranquil death, is best remembered here. 

He leaves a name that shall make holier these 

Huge temple pillars where the organing breeze, 
Always at requiem, fills the atmosphere, 
And does to their eternal roof uprear 

Perpetual music of great memories. 

Men raised rich temples in the days antique 
To serve memorial unto virtues wan 
Beside his. Him no rites shall celebrate 

Gold-bought, ephemeral as their altar-reek — 
But, while time is, he here in solemn state 
Shall hold fit place in Nature's pantheon. 



[52] 



BENJAMIN-CONSTANT'S PAINTING 
OF QUEEN VICTORIA 

Apart, with centuries which she doth illume, 
The sunset on her face, around her throne 
Tapestried legends and heraldic stone, 

Silent she sits within that gorgeous gloom. 

Eyes narrowed in far retrospect assume 
Sorrows of empire. Not her dream alone 
Occident glories, Orients homage-prone, 

But more and more of Lucknow and Khartum. 

Along the past with heavy-lidded eyes 

She looks as one who knows the vision well, 
A quiet woman whom stately powers compel 

To splendor and to silent sacrifice — 

Por in the clare-obscure of her deep years 
What counter of gains hath likewise told her 
tears ? 



[53] 



WHEAT ELEVATORS 

Castles, or Titans' houses, or huge fanes 

Of ancient gods that yet compel men's fear — 
What powers, what pomps, do these betoken 
here 
Looming aloft upon the plough-seamed plains ? 
Souls of ripe seasons and spirits of sweet rains 
Flock hither ; and the sinewy, yellow year 
Heaps their high chambers with Pactolian gear 
More precious than those golden Lydian grains. 
Nor fortresses, nor demi-gods' abodes, 
These are upraised to well-feared deities 

Whose power is iron, and whose splendid 
sway 
Is undisputed now as when great Rhodes, 

And Tyre, and Carthage, flourished serving 
these, 
Or Joseph stored Egyptian corn away. 



[54] 



FAILURES 

They bear no laurels on their sunless brows, 

Nor aught within their pale hands as they go ; 

They look as men accustomed to the slow 
And level onward course 'neath drooping boughs. 
Who may these be no trumpet doth arouse, 

These of the dark processionals of woe, 

Unpraised, unblamed, but whom sad Acheron's 
flow 
Monotonously lulls to leaden drowse ? 
These are the Failures. Clutched by Circumstance, 

They were — say not too weak ! — too ready prey 
To their own fear whose fixed Gorgon glance 

Made them as stone for aught of great essay ; — 
Or else they nodded when their Master-Chance 

Wound his one signal, and went on his way. 



[55] 



THE SOBBING WOMAN 

I HEARD a woman sobbing in the night 

Against a casement high. And as she cried 
Our heartless world's deliberate homicide, 
Our tragic badinage, our mortal slight 
Of elemental claims, and the dark plight 
Of the poor I faced there, rigid, open-eyed. 
Across the unechoing street in silence died 
Her weary moaning. Whether in her sight 
Some star appeared to soothe her present pain 

With memories sweet, or quiet sleep's strong hand 
Blunted her keen-edged woe, or other fear 
Came smothering down too close for sob or tear, 
I could not guess ; — some Fate may understand 
That spins unseen her endless umber skein. 



[56] 



EXEMPTION 

Us would-be wise they mock — those from of old 
Who down the shuddering centuries with no sound 
Tread by men evenly as keen souls that hound 

A slayer. When the days turn strange and cold 

Who of us up dim, woody byways hold 

No protest with vague beings ? Thick around 
What mover among multitudes are not found 

Close but untouched companions ? — In a fold 

Of a still, midnight, winter hill one time 
Came they about me ! Fearful as I stood, 
The moon streamed up before me in a wood. 

And lit a frozen pool where swayed sublime 
In world-forgetfulness and young, swift joy, 
A skater, a wild, singing, thoughtless boy. 



[57] 



GOLDEN ROD 

Doubtless 't was here we walked but yesterday, 
Seeing not any beauty save the green 
Of meadows, or, where sUpt the brook between, 

A ribbon of blue and silver ; yet the way 

Is strange ; in golden paths I seem astray. 
Do you remember, comrade, to have seen 
Aught forward in these meadows that should mean 

A culmination in such fair display? 

We noticed not the humble stalks amid 
The many roadside grasses ; but, it seems, 
They were preparing this ! And, when their 
dreams 

Were ripe for doing, they could no more be hid 
Than golden thoughts that bloom to action when 
Their hearts make heroes out of common men. 



[581 



GOSPEL OF THE FIELDS 

Have you ever thought, my friend, 

As daily you toil and plod 
In the noisy paths of man, 

How still are the ways of God ? 

Have you ever paused in the din 

Of traffic's insistent cry, 
To think of the calm in the cloud, 

Of the peace in your glimpse of sky ? 

Go out in the growing fields 
That quietly yield you meat, 

And let them rebuke your noise 
Whose patience is still and sweet. 

They toil their aeons — and we 
Who flutter back to their breast, 

A handful of clamorous clay, 
Forget their silence is best I 



[59] 



THE WAY OF THE WORLD 

Aloof by something hidden held, 
Though yearning for companionship, 

He toiled ; and need, that so compelled, 
Wrung no word from his lip. 

Some said he scorned the human part ; 

Others, that self was all his care ; 
A few saw suffering in his heart, 

But shrank from entering there. 

They let him tread his lonely mile 
And toil apart as best he might. 

Nor sought a meaning in the smile 
He wore into the night. 

He died one day ; and when they found 
Him smiling in his final rest. 

An old, immedicable wound 
They saw within his breast. 

And those who oft with eye of stone 
Denied his soul their comfort's bliss, 

Said, " Why, if we had only known ! 
We had good anodynes for this ! " 



[60] 



OCTOBER SONG 

If this be October 't is the maid I 've sought so long ! 
I have traced her through the dying 

Summer with a song ; 
I have seen her garments flying 
Niffhts in June 
Down the crimson West beneath the moon ! 

If this be October, then, this dark-eyed, ruddy maid, 
With the amber in her tresses, 

All in gold arrayed, 
Let me sing yet while she dresses 
The still woods 
And the scarlet sumach solitudes ! 

Let me sing, nor think of gloom, the while she 
crowns her brow 
With the woodbine reddening 

Round the yellow bough ! 
Nothing sorrowful or saddening 
Brings she here. 
Only ripe fulfilments of the year ! 



[61] 



IN THE WOOD 

No shrill praise nor thanks confessed 
Clamorous to be understood. 

Troubles here the Sabbath rest 
Of the solitary wood. 

(There are ways to live and be 

Praiseful, thankful, silently.) 

Flowers fear not their God will blight 
If they shout no praises loud ; 

Trees attain their normal height 
Waving worship to a cloud. 

(Why should mortals anxiously 

Reassure the Deity ?) 

Thanks there are in everything 
Growing down the woodland way. 

Rendered through developing 
Fullest life and freest sway. 

(Let me find how I may be 

Thankful unobtrusively.) 



[62] 



IN OCTOBER 

The maples their old sumptuous hues resume 
Around the woodland pool's bright glass, and 

strong 
The year's blue incense and recession-song 

Sweep over me their music and perfume. 

Dear Earth, that I reproached thee in my gloom 
I would forget as thou forgot'st ; I long 
To make redress for such a filial wrong 

And praise thee now for all thy ruddy bloom ! 

So fond a mother to be used so ill ! 

Yet this poor heart of mine hath ever been 
Prey to its own unwarranted alarms. 

Shall fret, and beg forgiveness so, until 
Thou fold my thankless body warmly in 
And draw me back into thy loving arms. 



[63] 



THE UNFORGIVING 

The unforgiving one forgot 

And sinned, for he was flesh and blood, 
And deemed it cruel his dearest friend 

Forgave him not, nor understood. 

Long pored he o'er his wrongs until 
Trom his high window once he saw 

An outcast whom his arm had thrust 
Beneath the ban of certain law. 

Him hailed he in a frantic hope 

As one whose woes he would repair — 

But far and faint came his reply : 
" It is beyond thee now. Forbear ! " 

Then in he called his righteous friend 
And cried : " Thou wilt not yet forgive ? 

I pass the curse along to thee, 

That thou mayst sin — and know — and live ! " 



[64] 



THE TWO HEARTS 



" So long my heart hath held its full of joy. 

Bring on your tears ! I am made strong by 

these 
Sweet cordials of blood-stirring memories ; 

Some pain, perhaps, is better, lest they cloy." 

II 

" So long my heart, the chill abode of pain, 
Hath been contracted narrowly, I know 
That now this hot, new joy it drinketh so 

Must shatter it. Heart, drink quick again ! " 



[65] 



"ALL'S WELL" 

This in a dream at night : A flying start — 

A waving of white arms — a shroud — a bell — 

A sudden turning of a trusted heart — 
Some frantic errand over peak and fell : 

At dawn you wake : All 's well ! 

This in a life. The strain for what is not, 
A snatching at the sunbeam in your cell — 

The hope that fades — the sacrifice forgot — 
The frozen smile — the chime that dies a knell : 

At dawn you wake : All 's well ! 



[06] 



THE OPEN FURROW 

It rains today ; the dark clouds lend 

All earth deep sorrow, 
And heavy blasts of grief descend 

On field and new-turned furrow, 
Which wait the springing seed to take 

Upon the sunny morrow. 

It rains to-day ; the soul from gloom 

One light doth borrow : 
Near blessings through the mists uploom 

Above the open furrow, 
And welcome give the healthful seed 

Sown there by holy sorrow. 

It rains to-day ; but in the dark 

The new-turned furrow 
Doth wait the song which meadow-lark 

From heaven above shall borrow 
With which to hail the waving grain 

That springs upon the morrow. 



[07] 



AN ENVOY 

There is a River thou and I in storm 

Or in the purple windy dusk have watched ; 

And thou, when the quick surface of the stream 

Fled backward from his course before that breath, 

Hast said, " Oh, see the River flowing up ! " 

For thus it seemed. And then thine eyes have smiled. 

Mother, there 's a river floweth up — 

A sort of little tributary stream 

To the great seas — where clouds look and the morn. 

Where goes the wind, and many a wind hath gone, 

That, Mother, is the river of my song 

Whose running is to thee, though most it seem 

Those waters for another bourne are bound 

And there be quiet moments when all airs 

Suspend, and strong the current is revealed, 

And sudden to each other's eyes we turn. 



[68] 



FAME 

In quiet, day by day, 

Does worth to greatness win its upward way. 

Alone to him who toiled 

The arduous steps undaunted and unspoiled 

'T is granted to emerge 

Upon the envied goal's exalted verge. 

Unbidden then comes Fame, 

An issue of the journey, not its aim. 



[69] 



IRREVOCABLE 

Can the smiling ocean waft 

Into port again 
Yesternight's storm-shattered craft ? 

Is all smiling vain ? 

Can the lips once proved untrue 

Ever quite recall 
Old-time trust to hearts that knew 

Once their truth as all ? 



[70] 
TO A SICK ACTOR 

(DECEMBER, 1899) 

Without the northwind, sad and stern, 
How could we love of fireside learn ? 
The sun would shine unthanked if we 
Had never known inclemency. 
Thus come the clouds to show how true 
A nation's friendship shines for you. 



[71] 



TO ALGOL 

" Such light was his," so may she dreaming say 
In thought of one beneath thy changeful glow. 
" Such light was his when in the long ago 
He used to fret the night out with his lay 
Half-finished, and, forestalling the faint day, 

Creep from his couch while slipt the wan moon low 

For some poetic glimmer, sweet and slow, 
O'er which he hovered till the East was gray. 
Such light was his — and then he used to wait 
Long nights in darkness at the very gate 

Against whose far side beat the utmost light. 
Till, wearied straining at those bars in vain. 
He fell on dreams of light that went again 

To leave him starting in the empty night." 



[72] 



IDENTITY 

Trust me ; I must be myself. 

And, if thou 'rt the friend I thought thee, 
All thy doubts of me will rest 

By the open heart I brought thee, 
Unconfessed. 

Trust me ; thou shalt be thyself. 

In no deed wherein thou movest 
Shall a curious question pry. — 

And thou 'It thank me if thou lovest 
As do I. 



[73 J 



THREE SONGS FROM THE 
LIGHTHOUSE TOWER 

(ONTARIO) 

I SAW him climb the lighthouse tower ; 

The sea was singing of the day, 
The East was pink with promises, 

And all the West was sullen gray. 
He gazed to East and he gazed to West, 

(And oh, there was a sea light-blown !) 
He strained his eyes to dim sky-line 

Then pressed my hand within his own : 

SONG 

The kindly act, the worthy strife^ 

Are infinitesimals upward bent. 
The slow, sure growth of a noble life 

Wliose God will reckon each increment. 
Try and try and try : 

What's the Shadotv I'm pursuing ? 
After all that 's said and done, 

Something better waits my doing. 



[74] 

Be it at night when vaulted arch 

Rang with the music of our feast, 
Be it when, scattering her faint stars, 

The silver Morning rode the East ; 
With him upon the lighthouse tower, 

Or pink or gray or black the sky, 
I only heard the songs he sang, 

I saw alone his friendly eye. 

SONG 

There 's tender thought to pay you hack 
For all the charities you lack ; 
There 's a kind word to show you how 
You might have made a friend hut now. 
I build my house and you build yours ; 
The winds and rains shall try us all ■ 
'Tis its own timber that secures 
Each from its own downfall. 

I cannot see the lighthouse tower 

For all the misty waste of years 
Since ships have come and ships have gone 

Across Ontarios of tears ; 
But as I look I see his hand 

As though he waved from fields of air. 
And feel the light wind of the sea 

Waft me the songs he sings up there. 



[75] 

SONG 

Headlands three 

Guard the sea, 

Faith, Hope, Charity : 

Faith is firm against the storm ; 

Hope is higher than its spray ; 
Love, in bending to its arm. 

Turns it pacified away. 



[76] 
THE WINDOW LAMP 

(FOR A MONOTYPE) 

The tremor of a transient light 

Came softly through the yielding shade, 
And startled into guilty flight 

The phantoms loneliness had made. 

This forest he had groped in long, 
Not without heart, but all alone ; 

And now his soul sent forth a song — 
For once he such a light had known. 

" Somewhere 't is Home, it seems ! " he said ; 

" Though strange am I in all this night ; " 
And then he blessed the hand that sped 

The tremor of that transient light. 



[77] 
THE RETURN OF THE CRANES 

(CRANE ISLAND) 

When Spring's first tender signals come 
The crane flock northward flies, 

And their ancestral island home 
Echoes again their cries. 

Their long flight falters not nor rests 

Till weary pinions fold 
Where, round these lofty elm bough crests, 

Fair waters sweep their gold. 

And walking once where evening lay 

Along this island wood, 
I found, slow dying with the day, 

One of that brotherhood. 

The fingers of the gentle tide 
Light touched him where he fell 

Secure upon the beachy side 
The young flock loves so well. 

I stroked him and he lay as tame 

As any dying thing, 
While the dull westward sunset flame 

Lit his long-broken wing. 



[78] 

Above, wide- circling in the air, 
His flock grieved not for one ; 

And he, alone, lay quiet there. 
His journey bravely done. 



[79] 



INCONSISTENCY 

Once a Poet praised a Bird 
That his praises overheard. 

Thought the Bird, " Oh, rare delight ! 
I will sing to him all night ! " 

Long he sang, and somewhat shrill, 
On the Poet's window-sill. 

Till the Bard, grown wroth and grim, 
Made a Silent Bird of him. 

But next day this Poet signed 
Sixteen sonnets ere he dined, 

Having heard that someone is 
Quoting certain lines of his. 



[80] 



SAYONARA, BRADI SAN! 

Sayonara, Bradi San ! 

Not for Ind, nor glad Nippon, 

Trim I any sail ; yet wind 

Vast horizon-breadths behind 

Ways we friends have wandered late 

To your buddhas consecrate. 

Life, that for the moment showed 
Glimpses of a common road, 
Now dissevers us ; you turn 
Where the blinding glaciers burn. 
And along perpetual ice 
Skirt a snowy paradise. 

Your peaks of rime and mountain walls 

In sublime recessionals, 

And, where chasm cedars lean. 

All my River's mirror-green — 

Scenes that many dawns evolve 

Many dusks shall yet dissolve 

Ere for us the torri shine 
Ruddy welcome to your shrine. 



[81] 

Or the melancholy gong, 
Sounding, bear our souls along. 
But our day shall come anon, 
With " Ohayo, Bradi San I " 

Now I laze amongst the weeds 
Where the big bee growls and feeds ; 
I the hammock's easy state 
Assiduously cultivate, 
And all night in doze and dream 
Hear the wind along the stream. 

Moves the River, wide and brown, 

Far from village, far from town, 

Through the oak wood's singing shades. 

Past the painted palisades 

Where the purply bergamot 

And yarrow grace my tenting-spot. 

Here the goldfinch flashes by, 
And the rust-red butterfly 
Tacks unsteady into port — 
Some weed-lady's crimson court ; 
Green the ironwood tassels stir 
Round the jewel tanager. 

River, nights all moon-inlaid. 
Hath bright rugs of foreign braid, 

6 



[82] 

Of strange glistenings and glooms, 
Stuffs from out the breezes' looms ; 
Rock-dyed in their gauzy thread 
All day long they spread and spread. 

There the shadow merchantmen 

Moor to orient docks again ; 

As in some Burmese bazaar 

Here the filmy fabrics are ; 

Bales strange-lettered here lie sunned 

On the Nagasaki bund. 

Sobs my tender mourning-dove 
Through a crypto meria grove. 
While the bunting's deep blue wings 
Seem fair Nikko blossomings, 
And his tinkling notes, a bell 
By some shrined and sacred well. 

Spell o' the East ! It glows and grows 
Like a splendid burning rose 
Round the heart you set it in ! 
All the clouds of distance thin 
When its mystic, odorous sleep 
Draws my soul within its deep ! 

Distance is no longer. These 
Stars that gem the filigrees 



[83] 

Of the oak bough, and the bright 
Tent-roof-sifted moon-dehght. 
They your Persian lamp, and fields 
Are of your loved Jeypore shields. 

For the good, the brave, the kind. 
Ships a fair home-breeze shall find : 
Yours again of nights to look 
In some old familiar book 
By your own lamp ; I may stray, 
Undeserving, far away. 

And if there we meet not more, 
Make for the Remembered Shore : 
Thence I, or my ghost, shall hail 
Joyfully your whitening sail 
And, with soft airs of Nippon, 
Sigh, " Ohayo, Bradi San ! " 



Lower Palisades, 
Red Cedar River 



[84] 



TO THE GRAND ARMY OF THE 
REPUBLIC 

(NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT, 1896) 

Long has the cannon's angry mouth been mute, 
Muffled with garlands tearful Freedom twines 

For brave hearts stilled that bounded to refute 
The slander on her shrines. 

Victorious banners that through blackened air 
Went quivering in the war's hot agony, 

Thrice sacred in their tatters and thrice fair, 
We furl full reverently : 

Long cold is many a hand that held them high 
To shot and sheH and battle's withering breath ; 

Speaks many a voice that woke the rallying cry 
Dumb eloquence of death. 

But patriot thrill and proud remembrance start 
Not only at these trophies of long truce ; 

Not only here the quick, responsive heart 
Unstops its tear-brimmed cruse. 

Something to lift us from the sordid aim 
Goes with you heroes of the outlived strife ; 

With you the present sweeps past heights of fame 
And soars to newer life. 



[85] 

To grasp the hands that, braving scorch and scar, 
Broke slavery's chain to mend the bond of state, 

That plunged into the seething pit of war 
To grip our Country's fate ; 

To feel the pulse of Victory down the street 
In measured cadence of the drum's quick roll, 

The martial music thrilling high and sweet 
Into the echoing soul : 

To catch such flash from memory-kindled eyes 
As met Death's eager face unflinchingly, 

When out beneath gray, hope-forsaken skies 
You charged for Liberty ; 

To hail you here — the Nation's heart outpours 
Warm welcomes on your long triumphal way ; 

We wreathe your laurels on our city doors, 
And fling them wide to-day. 

Here in a fresh Republic, rich and new, 

Peace rests her hand in Victory's furrowed palm- 

A hand unscarred, but no less strong and true 
Through years of blood-bought calm. 

You sentries of her rights in doubt and dread, 
The strong Republic's bounty she assures : 

Her hearths your campfires for the years ahead. 
Her hearts forever yours. 



[86] 
THE DEAD STATESMAN 

(MARCH 13, 1901) 

What of the man ? His character was hewn 
From patriot quarries on the height of seers ; 

With honors was his way to honors strewn 
And calm indorsements of the critic years. 

Who says " no crisis wrought his fiber's test " ? 

Why, from of old the exacting gods asked not 
More proof of worth in heroes after-blessed 

Than that they kept their love of duty hot ! 

What, then, are " crises " ? They are action-peaks, 
Decision's moments towering into light ; 

But what are they of which man never speaks 
That rise by thousands just beneath our sight ? 

He knew the stress of state, the slow appeal 
Of righteous aims, the thankless, unseen tasks. 

Untiring service to the widest weal 
And, save the glory, all a hero asks. 

What of the silence ? This must be for all. 

But there 's a grandeur in some silences ; 
And while the hush and mist around us fall 

Our hearts are lifted for such life as his. 



[87] 

Up to such silence who would not be keen 
To struggle finely and at length withdraw — 

Henceforth in statutes wise to walk unseen, 
And be a presence in the juster law ! 



[88] 
RENAN 

(ON A FLYLEAF OF MADAME DARMESTETER'S " LIFE ") 

Once in Montraartre I looked through the door of 

his tomb : 
Outside lay the morning; within, dull twihght and 

dust. 
I look in his Soul, round about me the mist and the 

gloom : 
Within, serene, beams the light of the Pure and the 

Just I 



II 

EX LIBRIS 



[91] 



THE PATHMASTER 

(1301-1901) 

Ere Florence sowed that seed of woe 
Which yet her vain remorse doth reap 
The harvest of, and scorned to keep 

Her Dante in her halls, (for so 
It is beyond the Apennines 
He sleeps where foreign Summer shines) 

'T is said, before the factious Guelf 
Grew such a prodigal of spleen 
His quarrel with the Ghibelline 

Had bred black schism in himself, — 
That Alighieri, wise and good, 
Among the priors of Florence stood 

And him a chief the city made 
Of those whose strict official cares 
Should be in lanes and thoroughfares 

To see the skilless builder stayed. 
To beautify the paths unclean, 
And render broad the straight and mean. 



[93] 

And further we this word do hold 
From such scant fact as faintly stirs 
From quills of chary chroniclers, 

Those self-unconscious scribes of old, — 
Unto that end his earnest prime 
Bent Dante through the lotted time. 

From this and like old writ we deem 
That somewhere under palace eaves 
The bard divine some relic leaves 

Of widened ways : scarce more than dream. - 
Had Florence not more weighty heeds 
Than setting down a Dante's deeds ? 

What street of all thy ancient streets, 

Thou Lily of the Arno, say, 

Dost thou allure men down to-day 
Where legend not that name repeats ? 

What road but some old memories tell 

Of walls that serve it sentinel ? 

One road he paved (the records show) 

" So that unlet at their desires. 

The commons may approach the priors ; " 
Which was, men said, San Procolo. 

But what saith one of subtler wit ? 

Far other Road than this was it ! 



[93] 

thou fair Dreamer of the Dead, 

When Night with swift remembering-pangs 
Her pale gold lamp above thee hangs, 

And round thy windless squares is tread 
Of phantom feet, — oh, whisper low 
Which way his measured footsteps go. 

For, maybe, at such magic hour 

One might slip forth some quiet way, 
While sleeps the body, to the gray. 

Cold flagstone, thence by font and tower. 
Till whisper saith : The Road was this 
And passed the house of Beatrice. 

Pale Singer of the Song Divine, 

Who toiled and dreamt and sang apart, 
Unto these latter days thy heart 

Is better known ; such song as thine 
And the stern mark upon thy brow. 
Then dark, are not all riddle now. 

Six centuries, a hard, steep maze. 

The world hath climbed since thou in shade 

To Paradise thy soul-path laid 
Through heart-ache and long, bitter days ; 

Till now, from loftier plane, it turns 

Unto thy lore and, wondering, learns 



[94] 

Thy Road was that severer Love 
Out widening to the place of Law 
Whereto we commons may withdraw 

And prove our right to things above, — 
And over which, as to thy friends. 
Calm Beatrice her hand extends. 



[95] 



THOUGHT OF STEVENSON 

High and alone I stood on Calton Hill, 
Above the scene that was so dear to him 
Whose exile dreams of it made exile dim. 

October wooed the folded valleys till 

In mist they blurred, even as our eyes upfill 
Under a too sweet memory ; spires did swim. 
And gables rust-red, on the gray sea's brim — 

But on these heights the air was soft and still. 

Yet not all still : an alien breeze did turn 
Here as from bournes in aromatic seas. 

As round old shrines a new-freed soul might yearn 
With incense to his earthly memories. 

And then this thought : Mist, exile, searching pain, 

But the brave soul is free, is home again ! 



[96] 
FROM VAEA 

(MARCH, 1899) 

(One of the inscriptions on Stevenson's tomb on Mount Vaea is 
a translation of Kuth i. 16-17.) 

Again from out the Southern Seas 
We hear their bawling batteries ; 
Again where shift the pleasant airs, 
The fouling breath of cannon fares, 
And leaves to girdle Upolu 
A long, red stain upon the blue. 
Roused from their tender reveries, 

The Vailima gardens wring 

With red rose-mallows quivering, — 
But yonder, up Vaea's stairs, 

Unfooted by a battle-thought. 
The godless noises find surcease, 

And Tusitala, undistraught. 
Remains in peace, remains in peace. 

Down Summer seas they blare and blot 
And hurtle wide their Christian shot 
Among the villaged cocoa-palms, 
A sudden wealth of leaden alms — 
Reason, forsooth, a native king 
Waxed weary of their bullying. 



[97] 

But there in his lone mountain spot, 
He who loved well the island race 
In silence turns away his face, 

Albe his voice from those far calms 
Unto the Northern conscience cries : 

" Indeed no kith of mine be these 
Who hold sweet life so light a prize 

Leave us in peace, leave us in peace ! " 



[98] 

ALBA LONGA 

I HAVE read in tales of the heroes 

That lived in the days of eld, 
Of that city built in Latium 

By the Alban Mount upheld, 
Along the white crest winding, 

Buttressed and citadelled. 

I have heard how her long walls guarded 

The Tiber's vale afar, 
How they gleamed through years of quiet. 

And glowed in the years of war ; 
I have dreamt how the pale moon lit them 

To the exiled Numitor. 

I can close my eyes and behold it. 

That city so long and white. 
With her columned temple rising 

Under the star-ceiled night, 
And the vestal Rhea flitting 

Within by the pallid light. 

And oh, for some chord of music. 

And oh, for the voice divine. 
To echo softly and sweetly 

Across this dream of mine. 
While Rhea's white robes flutter 

By Vesta's spotless shrine ! 



[99] 

Some nights when the plangent murmurs 

Of rivers of wind go by, 
I am one with their undulations, 

Their eddy and sweep and sigh : 
We mingle and flow together 

Under the storm-filled sky. 

And then we are chilled with sorrow, 
As we flow and flow and flow 

Back through the channels of ages 
To the sources of ancient woe. 

Back in the Tiber valley 

Those long white hills below. 

A light in the temple of Vesta 
Around the shrine was shed ; 

And oh, but it leaped and flickered 
To one great orb o'erhead : 

The flame of Rhea was golden, 
But the flame of Mars was red. 

A sigh, a sigh in the nightwind 
For the awful shields that gleam 

Of a Vestal's sons turned warriors 
Beside the Tiber stream : — 

So my purple Rome has swallowed 
The Long White City of dream ! 



[100] 



FOR A FLYLEAF 

(RUSKIN'S "ROADSIDE SONGS OF TUSCANY") 

Since the hearth-smoke of the world 

First into the azure curled, 

Men have hummed them by the fire, 

Women crooned their sweet desire 

In low, minor melodies, — 

Just such little songs as these. 

Simple words but towering love, 
Each-day feelings speaking of; 
And the heart that beats within 
Breast where suffering has been 
Will know its own and quickly seize 
Just such little songs as these. 

When the improvising wind 
Flutes across the cottage blind 
With a music new, but old. 
It will always pause to hold 
Some sweet note — at mother-knees 
Children singing songs like these. 



[101] 

Such a song claims little wit. 
For anyone can fathom it ; 
But 't will cling to lips that sing, 
Like a kiss of some far Spring, 
Gotten when your fancy-breeze 
Sang to you such songs as these. 

Out of hearts that feel the pain, 
Knowing it will heal again ; 
Out of souls that do not care 
What the form be if so there 
Linger something that will ease - 
Come such simple songs as these. 



[102] 



MOTHERS AND SISTERS 

Mothers and sisters whom no sacrifice 

Dismays, nor whom yom' long, laborious hours 
Do anywise appall, ye are the powers 

By whom the swift are girded for the prize 

They reach in the light of your believing eyes. 
Ye are the hidden oil the shrine devours ; 
Soil of the garden whence the great rose flowers ; 

The silent force that bids a star arise. 

Ye ask of men nor honor, nor regret, 

Nor memory, save one's whose love is all. 

Renouncement ? Living daily the divine ! 

EfFacement ? Still the world your names shall call 

Monica was the mother of Augustine ; 

Pascal had Jacqueline ; Renan, Henriette ! 



[103] 



AFTER AN AMATEUR PERFORM- 
ANCE OF LES ROMANESQUES 

It was all just a play — 

They will both tell you so I 
We believe what they say : 
*' It was all just a play." 
Still, " Sylvette " — " Percinet " — 

Wherever they go. 
Was it all just a play ? 

They will both tell you so ! 



[ 104] 
TO SYLVETTE 

(AN ACROSTIC RONDEAU) 

(The first amateur representation in America of Eostand's 
" Les Romanesques " occurred in February, 1901, at the Lyceum 
Theatre in Minneapolis. It was given by the Dramatic Club of 
the University of Minnesota, Miss Inez Helen Lord playing Syl- 
vette, and Mr. Thomas Swem, Percinet.) 

Is it, Sylvette, young Percinet's 

Naivete, impulsive ways, 
Engaging chivalry, or yet 
Zeal for the old Romance, hath set 

Heart sweet as thine in Love's amaze ? 

Enchantments out of other days 
Love weaves : and the design he lays 
Easy to learn is. To forget. 
Is it, Sylvette ? 

Nay ! And the Cynic's questioning phrase 
Let us, in silence only, raise — 

Of to the Wall how large a debt 

Romantic Love herein hath met. 
Dissect Love not : it never pays, 

Does it, Svlvette ? 



[105] 



IN THE BODLEIAN 

And am I heir to all this lore 

Of the great men gone before — 

To the infinite, fair renown 

That the generous years hand down ? 

Youngest son, yet held to be 

Worthy such a legacy ? 

Nay, scarce worthy. Yet few fears 

Chide the charitable years 

By whose terms their whole estate 

Doth widen as we dissipate : 

I inherit but so far 

As my powers of spending are. 

All is freely left me, yet 
Must I toil for all I get. 
Living happier for this 
Condition of the benefice : 
Rich but thrifty, as I were 
A millionaire day-laborer. 



[106] 



"^X LIBRIS' 

In an old book at even as I read 

Fast fading words adown my shadowy page, 

I crossed a tale of how, in other age 
At Arqua, with his books around him, sped 
The word to Petrarch ; and with noble head 

Bowed gently o'er his volume, that sweet sage 

To Silence paid his willing seigniorage. 
And they who found him whispered, " He is dead ! " 
Thus timely from old comradeships would I 

To Silence also rise. Let there be night, 
Stillness and only these staid watchers by, 

And no light shine save my low study light — 
Lest of his kind intent some human cry 

Interpret not the Messenger aright. 



Ill 

ROSELEAVES 



[109] 



MAY NIGHT 

Again my slender thorn is white 

And as of old its odor blows 
Up through the lit and lovely night 

To me within my garden close. 

In unforgotten, holy Mays, 

All on a night that else was still, 

Thou sangest up the country ways 

And borest me bloom from yonder hill. 

Now, as in other Springs, I wait 
For thy familiar voice — in vain ; 

The moon and I have listened late 
For that remembered music-strain. 

Of song and thee I dream — and round 
My rest the night-bird's note is borne ; 

And here, a slim girl blossom-crowned. 
Arms wide to me, the bridal thorn ! 



[110] 



THOU DIDST NOT DIE 

Thou didst not die when thou didst leave my vision, 
Nor art thou distant now thy face is gone ; 

Thou hast not fled to some dim, trans-Ely sian, 
Uncalled-from shore, where'er thy form be flown. 

Thou whom the days continually gave pleasure, 
Whom the warm nights in happiness shut round, 

Thou seekest not for any blossoms fresher 

In strange, bright fields, than in our own were 
found. 

Thou hadst not looked to other constellations, 
Being unwearied with thine own and mine ; 

Thou hast not sought new, heavenly occasions ; 
Here and by me the Universe is thine. 

Thou art so near these nights no more seem sober, 
Nor thy loved flowers sad around me here. 

Than when we watched together in October 
The eye of Taurus flaming low and clear ; 

Then when we made the woodland echo startle 
With long halloos in the sweet Autumn air ; 

Or laughed to see the vistaed brooklet dartle. 
Or strung a harp with strings of maidenhair. 



[Ill] 

Nay, thou art by me in a subtler presence, 

That makes my world less earth and more a star ; 

For in my soul thou hast poured acquiescence 
From interstellar wells of rest afar. 

And I grow wise in the wide ways of heaven 
With thee beside me to explain all things — 

With thee, once mine, still mine ! to whom 't is given 
To sweep the stars, yet folding here thy wings. 

Thou on long eves, interpreted of roses, 

Dost teach me utter lore; and perfume-shod 

Each meaning comes, and calmly fair uncloses 
As sweet girls' spirits at the feet of God. 



[112] 



THE WHITE ROSE 

By a pleasant garden walk once there grew a slender 

stalk 
Where at eve a pair of sweethearts used to love to 

dream and talk ; 
It was they who in the Maytime, in the flush of 

Maytime fair, 
Brought the rose and set it there. 

And the Lover said, " 'T will be as a pledge 'twixt 

thee and me, 
For the first sweet bloom upon it shall be consecrate 

to thee — 
Shall be thine to keep forever, and upon its petals 

white 
Shall our solemn troth be plight ! " 

And the bud that heard him speak, from that slender 

stalk and weak 
Nourishment took heed to gather, favoring foods 

began to seek. 
When each night the lovers marked it, how its little 

leaves did swell, 
They would say, " The Rose doth well ! " 



[113] 

Bright and busy days were those for the eager, 

swelling Rose, 
Fairest petals ever whitened in a lover's garden 

close ! 
Thought the bud, "Ah, soon the hour, soon the 

drooping on her breast, 
Next her heart to be at rest ! " 

One still hour of reddening sun when the dew-time 

was begun 
Came the Lover to the blossom — came the Lover. 

only one. 
And strange dews fell silently as he took the Rose 

full-blown, 
Took, and bore it off alone. 

In a still and sacred gloom, in a hushed and dim-lit 

room, 
Did he leave his plighted flower with its consecrated 

bloom, 
Hers to keep forever shielded from the shattering 

of the blast. 
And the White Rose sighed, " At last ! " 



[114] 



OLD GARDENS 

The white rose tree that spent its musk 

For lovers' sweeter praise, 
The stately walks we sought at dusk, 

Have missed thee many days. 

Again, with once-familiar feet, 

I tread the old parterre — 
But, ah, its bloom is now less sweet 

Than when thy face was there. 

I hear the birds of evening call ; 

I take the wild perfume ; 
I pluck a rose — to let it fall 

And perish in the gloom. 



[115] 



IN A DREAM 

Last night I dreamed God let you come again 
To the old place we loved so long ago ; 

And all my burning lips could utter then 

Was, " Love, I did not know ! I did not know ! " 

I dreamed you were as sweetly fragile-fair 
As in the days when you began to fade — 

As in those days when walking with you there 
I wondered that you often were afraid. 

There was the same appeal of widened eyes, 
The flutter of the hand within my arm ; — 

And now I was not strange to this surprise. 

But sought to clasp you from the shadowed harm. 

And in your eyes reproach, filmed o'er by love, 
And softened by the tender, absent years, 

Renewed the heartbreak I am subject of, 
And flooded all the sources of old tears. 

It seemed not you that spoke, yet 't was your voice ; 

Still-lipped, you seemed to make unwilling moan. 
As if the outer powers had left no choice 

But you must answer, " Ay, but should have 
known ! " 



[116] 



SONG AFTER PARTING 

It is over. Like sweet dreams 

Let it be, 
Or a summer-haunted stream's 

Melody. 
Even so thy passing seems 

Unto me. 

But the dream most dear and bright 

May Hve yet, 
Fading not along the night 

In regret — 
While the heart love faileth quite 

Must forget ! 

And the river sings and flows 

Ever on, 
Born, like love, of mountain snows 

And the sun — 
While thy love, unlike it, goes 

And is gone ! 



[117] 



SINCE WE SAID GOOD-BYE 

Kissed we not and said good-bye ? 

Then why wilt thou haunt me thus 
With thine eyes in all my dreams 

Making night-time luminous ? 
Art thou haunted, dear, as I, 
Since we kissed and said good-bye ? 

Had we kissed not, parting so, 

This were only just in thee ; 
Had we kissed and said no word 

Thou hadst right to torture me ; 
But thou knowest, well as I, 
First we kissed, then said good-bye ! 

That good-byes may last too long — 
Is it this thine eyes would tell ? 

Or do they reproaching plead 
Kisses do not last so well? 

Art thou lonelier than I 

Since we kissed and said good-bye ? 



[118] 



THE TWO PRAYERS 

At night one leaned from earth's dim edge, 

(Oh, but he seemed alone !) 
And looked down, down, below his ledge 

Where a calm planet shone. 

Some pain — a common thing — had bent 

His looks out over heaven ; 
The sorrow of a day ill-spent, 

The still remorse of even. 

In which (oh, quite in vain !) he yearned 

Unto the lustrous star 
That with more steadfast beauties burned 

Than in the earthhghts are. 

He flashed a prayer from his far height. 

And down the dark blue well 
Where lone and splendid swam that light, 

He watched it as it fell. 

Out far he strained to mark its course — 

And sudden was aware 
That upward from such golden source 

A prayer had crossed his prayer ! 



[119] 

His on serenely to its goal 
Had fluttered like a flame ; 

Yet gazed he still with wondering soul 
The two prayers were the same. 



[120] 



CONSUMMATION 

As the clear fountain sparkles on the hill 

In some flowered basin at a cool, sweet height, 
Yet comes from we guess not what galleried night. 

Devious, untraced, and altogether ill, — 

So doth my love from other days distil, 

Through channels occult groping up to light, 
Deeming all labors past as thrice requite 

If once thou stoop thy hollowed hand to fill. 

Clear eyes that bend upon my love thou hast ; 
I would have them thereon meet no dismay : — 

I thank the chastenings of that cryptic past 

Where those soiled waters crept their stains 
away, — 

Those slandered days whose riddle now, at last. 
Grows plain before this fair and ultimate day. 



[121] 



AFTER ALL 

When, after all, you come to Love and lay 
Your weary hands within his hands and say, 

" Love, thou art best ! " how can you know that 
then 
He will not laugh and turn his face away ? 

When, after many conflicts, your proud heart, 
Seamed with old scars, would take Love's quiet 
part — 
Ah, to make fair that place for him again 
Which of all Love's physicians has the art ? 



[122] 



THE AMBER LOOP 

( Amber was believed by the ancients to be the crystallized tears of 
wood nymphs.) 

He found it in a quaint bazaar, 

This amber for her auburn hair. 
And pictured to himself afar 

Its beauty coiling there. 

He saw its shining length uptwist 
Through visions of her lovelit face, 

And let it nestle round his wrist 
In delicate embrace. 

An exquisite proportioning, 

From end to end of every strand. 

He noticed as the yellow thing 
SHpt idly through his hand. 

" Five men no fewer toilsome years 
It took to sort the stringful, sir ! " 

He bore it oflF to leave in tears 
The doting jeweller. 

As with the gems he, smiling, went 

Down that strange city's winding street. 

The odor of the Orient 

Rose from them, pungent-sweet — 



[123] 

A scent so dear to some lost day. 

So consecrated to the past, 
That ere he knew it tears broke way 

And hotly held him fast. 

And were these not wrought out in tears, 
By hands that trembled in their place 

Through long and maybe loveless years 
To consummate this grace ? 

And will she, too, recall it so. 

When, after many days, they greet — 
Their half-forgotten, common woe. 

Heart-filling, pungent-sweet ? 



[124] 



HUGO: RODIN'S BUST, CHAP- 
LAIN'S MEDAL 

(For C. M. A., in Paris, who sent me the Centenary Medal, 1902) 

Both Hugo: that, mid-struggle, titanic in triumph- 
strain ; 

This, poised, secure, like a god who looks down on 
the toils of the plain ! 



[125] 



WHEN ROSELEAVES FALL 

When roseleaves fall in evenings cold 
To mingle with their mother mold, 
Look to it lest thy heart be set 
To seek strange blossoms and forget 
Thy roses and their ways of old ! 

Run not to lesser blooms ! nor fold 
Unto thy heart the creed those hold 
Who stand like Stoics by and let 
Their roseleaves fall ! 

But gather them as precious gold ; 
Rich-spiced, high-placed and orient-bowled, 

They shall be Summer to thee yet. 

What though they fade and thou regret, 
Thou canst make theirs a boon untold 
When roseleaves fall. 



BEYOND THE HILLS 



[129] 



CROSS COURSES 

Where Summer skies glint silver-blue 
The dark, cliff-clinging larches through, 
Where foam and spray and sounding swell 
Commingle from the inland seas 
In solemn, heart-reechoed keys 
Up piney crest and cedar dell, 

Pive souls whose love went out to thee, 

Dim Spirit of lost Arcady, 

Whose hopes breathed in the balm of prayer 

From benedictions of the air — 

Five souls crossed courses from far seas 

And thrilled to sudden sympathies. 

They parted. The continuous sea 
Made of it but a memory. 
One feels the pulse of freedom throb 
In surges on the Pilgrim shore ; 
One hears the Mississippi sob 
The sorrows of forgotten lore ; 

One touches Ocean's healing hems 
Below the busy tide of Thames ; 



[130] 

One, by the amber Baltic, lights 
A Northland home with love's pure gleam 
And one, ah, one, upon the Heights 
Is safe across the shadowed stream. 

Five friends, a dash of jewelled spray, 
A twilight shadow drifted down 
Across the ledge's larchen crown ; 
Farewells, and through the hidden way 
Love pilots toward an unseen beach 
Each to the haven best for each. 



[131] 



ALOHA OE! 

(TO W. S. W.) 

Behold, we clasp our sundered hands 
Across the kind and faithful deep. 

You on the gold Hawaiian sands, 
I here among the cows and sheep. 

I thanked the waters that so well 
Had borne you to the Island friend, 

And thank them thrice for every swell 
That bears me back the words you send. 

Strange currents, the untamable air 
Between us moving, and the rhyme 

Of epic oceans, wax and wear ; 
And lightly slip the feet of Time. 

And you will tread the Island Hills, 
And you will learn the Island grace, 

Before your gift of daffodils 
Shrivels in my Benares vase. 

Only come back and I '11 be strong 
With wine of hope and country cheer ; 

Still begging for another song 

And laughing just to see you near ! 

WOODEND FaKM 



[132] 



A MEMORY 

In the hush of holy twihght 

A trembling sea of red ; 
A purple cloud dipped lakeward 

Where the dead sun's pall is spread, 
And a gray-tiled walk for shadows 

Leading to years long dead. 

I lean on the arched palings 
Of a bridge in a city grand : 

There are turrets of chastest silver 
Arising on every hand, 

And such domes of fire-tipped crystal 
As would dazzle in fairyland. 

Dark gondolas go sweeping 

On burning ponds below, 
With songs of old Venezia 

In tender notes and low ; 
Round them in ceaseless rhythm 

The red waves come and go. 

Now they drift in the torchlight, 
And under a canopy 



[133] 

Fair eyes look out in wonder 
At the glory they may see, 

And a fairy hand is tapping 
To the gondoliere's glee. 

Now they drift into the shadow, 
And the cantilena's notes 

Rise and fall in measure 

With the dipping of the boats, 

Till vague in the melting distance 
Their pensive cadence floats. 

It is wafted into the chambers 

Of my dearest memory, 
There to bide and make me music 

When the world weighs heavily. 
And to echo its simple sweetness 

To all eternity. 



[134] 



THE DEAD GEYSER 

I SAT in the forest at sundown. 
On the trunk of a fallen tree ; 

There were calm, low lights to westward, 
But shadows over me. 

And the gold beneath the branches 
Was wonderful to see. 

Before me lay a circle 

In the glow of the fading sky. 
The rim of an outworn geyser 

That brothered an age gone by, 
With roots grown down in its fissures 

As thick as a good man's thigh. 

A hemlock, rough and distorted. 

Stood at the circle's head, 
And beneath it were ivy and yarrow 

And little gold daisies spread, 
Like such as they loop in the Springtime 

To cover the noble dead. 



[135] 

I mused on the buried giant 
That, hundred of years before, 

Up through the mossgrown crater 
From his narrow dungeon tore — 

And half in a dream I hstened 
To catch his approaching roar. 

Then up in the evening silence, 
And up in the westward light, 

And over the widening shadow. 
He seemed to take his flight, 

Alone in the awesome stillness, 
So solemn and weird and white. 

A chipmunk peeped from his burrow 
Where the white dead pine-stem lay; 

A night-hawk rose from his tree-tip 
To spiral the muffling gray ; 

And the wandering breath of Summer 
Seemed all at once taken away. 

With never a plash nor a murmur 

The beautiful spectre stood. 
Gold-vested, scarlet-mitred 

Of fires behind the wood, 
And his white hand pointing heavenward 

In earth's dim solitude. 



[136] 

A catbird called through the gloaming 
And shook the woodland deep ; 

The folded gentian quivered 
In the quiet of her sleep, 

And my heart that had been so tranquil 
Came up with a sudden leap. 

The molten brass in the tree-boles 

Had dwindled to a span ; 
So I rose with great thoughts crowding 

In solemn caravan, 
And crept through the shade, a shadow, 

Who had set me down a man. 



[137] 



A SUNDOWN IN THE YELLOW- 
STONE 

Clear-cut against a windswept sky, beneath the 

fading day. 
The long, low ridges calmly lie, a cameo in gray : 
'T is night at home, and here am I a thousand miles 

away. 

I watch through gray-green hyaline the geyser-vapors* 

flight — 
Stray underworldlings made divine by contact with 

the light, 
Like souls fresh-freed from earth's confine and bound 

for realms more bright. 

The sun, from out his gilded car, looks back along 

the West ; 
His red steeds brush the evening star athwart the 

mountain crest, 
And bring me messages afar from one I love the best. 

A hundred cloudlets swim beside, translucent silver 

through. 
And others mauve and crimson stride adown the 

pallid blue; 
And freighted well I know they ride with tender 

thoughts from you. 



[138] 

But all the light that e'er has lain before the sunset 

throne, 
And all the wings of vermeil stain through golden 

portals flown. 
Would leave me with the after-pain of wondering 

alone. 

If, when, beyond the lowest hill the red has all turned 

gray, 
And my lone heart has ceased to fill with wealth of 

dying day, 
I paused to think that you are still a thousand miles 

away. 



[139] 



IN A WYOMING FOREST 

Now it is twilight, and a yellow fire 

Streaks through the narrow aisles of singing pines. 

Low the old sexton, Night, lets down his blinds, 
Leaving me in his sanctuary choir 
To hear my own heart inwardly aspire. 

Chanting with all the trees the same sweet lines ; 

While, overhead, one bent cloud dimly shines 
Like an archangel pleading my desire. 
Sunset across the level woodland floor. 

And calm within the forest of my soul ; 
A softer light I had not known before 

Now radiates from my beclouded goal. 
And in a tranquil glory through the door 

Of the dun future seems to rise and roll. 



[140] 



MACKINAW 

Can I forget the perfect day 

When, drifted from the world away, 

I hfted up my eyes and saw 

The shining chffs of Mackinaw ? 

Can I forget the limpid lake, 

That mock-a-day that to and fro 

A busy mirror ran below, 

And streamed white wonders in our wake ? 

Forget the long, delicious drive 

Where freshly I could feel the live 

Young spirit of old woods survive? 

Forget the hillsides junipered, 

The gloomy hemlock zephyr-stirred, 

That in the winking waters draw 

Their aquarelles at Mackinaw ? 

Her tapered pinnacles and domes. 

Her straits beyond the larch-browed walls 

Afar in glistening intervals. 

Below the heights of old Fort Holmes ? 

Ah, no. I cannot reason that 
Where beauty once in vision sat 
All life's defacing after-storms 
Can level its imprinted forms. 



[141] 

Each cliff, each curve, each mirrored tree, 

On tablets of my memory 

Shall evermore recorded be — 

Intaglio of that perfect day 

When, drifted from the world away, 

I lifted up my eyes and saw 

The lovely isle of Mackinaw, 



[ 142] 



THE SONGS THE ENGINES SANG 

EoR days the lordly engines trod 

To foam the subject sea, 
And gloried in their power to plod 

Long paths untiringly. 

They bore us down the swirling deep, 

Watchful from light to light ; 
Their rhythm, throbbing through our sleep. 

Soothed us in dream all night. 

And when we rose, the world made new, 

To breathe the morning air, 
Their music on the dancing blue 

Made all the day more fair. 

In them a Pilgrims' Chorus woke, 

A chant serene and strong. 
Which from our voices did evoke 

Sweet intervals of song. 

And, as our comradeships grew warm, 

And loud our carols rang, 
It seemed our lips began to form 

The songs the engines sang. 



[143] 

Words flew to aid the blending tones 

And make them fit to be 
The rich, respondent antiphones, 

To heavier harmony. 

As when, from some cathedral niche, 

One hears the organ roll, 
And let its diapason pitch 

The anthems of his soul. 

So we, at noon or twilight dim. 
Heard that great voice below, 

And on our lips we found a hymn 
Whether we would or no, — 

A hymn of comfort and of health 

That into being burst 
From the still soul's unmeasured wealth, 

Unconscious, unrehearsed. 

And now, amid the city throng. 

Where smoky vapors hang, 
Our memory keeps us fresh and strong 

With songs the engines sang. 



[ 144] 



DAWN IN CUMBERLAND 

Our eager train to northward sped 
Through shadow till the East was red, 
When, lo, the dawn's reviving brand 
Kindled the hills of Cumberland. 

Our track, along an upland crest. 
Shone first ; but down the quiet West 
Each faint-lined hollow still was full 
Of the slow mist's unwinding wool. 

Penrith lay wrapped in fairy smoke 
Till winds among the valleys woke 
And stirred within it, as it seems 
Reluctant risers move in dreams. 

Beyond all this was that I saw 
The lofty brow of stern Skiddaw ? 
I know not for my heart did hold 
An image of a gentler mold : 

Wordsworth, whose name these hillsides own, 
And waters' tender undertone 
Makes music of forevermore 
In Derwent, Duddon or Lodore. 



[ 145] 

From those fresh heights rich store have I 
Of upland lovely thoughts laid by : 
From the soft mist below them hung 
New dreams that yet I walk among. 



10 



[146] 



THE AVON AND THE THAMES 

If, in all Albion's storied sweep, 

No other wave were seen. 
The Avon and the Thames would keep 

Her romance gardens green. 

Two silver cords are those she wears, 

Fast by her side to hold 
Her book of songs, her book of prayers, 

As did the dames of old. 

Fine lyric lore the first book reads. 

Of woodland wanderings ; 
The other, ancient, holy deeds 

And orisons of kings. 

Mitres and crowns continually 
Allure the chanting Thames ; — 

The Avon lilts to any lea 
For cowslip diadems. 

The Thames, at Oxford turned the sage. 
The prince at Windsor grown, 

Betakes himself in pilgrimage 
To Lambeth's reverend throne. 



[147] 

But Avon, gentle Avon, goes 

Far from such loud renown, 
Beneath old Warwick's porticos 

To quiet Stratford town. 

And there — sweet home of high romance ! 

It loiters, giving praise 
For him whose consecrating glance 

Sought once its leafy ways. 

Gold reveries, silken dreams, beside 
Its marge their glamour blend, 

Till, shpping to the Severn's tide. 
It smiles an envied end. 

While Thames and Avon onward sing, 

Their music's spell shall fall. 
The one's on warrior, priest and king. 

The other's upon all. 



AT WILMCOTE 

(Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was a girl at Wilmcote, a pic- 
turesque hamlet in Warwickshire.) 

So soft the dusk that Summer night 

The still moon like a stranger came, 
And ere we missed the sunset light, 

Made us aware of whiter flame. 
Fair rose she o'er the steading wall, 

Poised there as though she loved to hang 
And let her fairy splendors fall 

Where Mary Arden walked and sang. 

The shadows in the hollyhocks 

That trailed their crimson bloom along 
The paling of her garden walks, 

Were shaken with a sudden song : 
Some bird, a stranger to this sphere, 

Smitten mid-wing with beauty's pang, 
Sought easement of his rapture here 

Where Mary Arden walked and sang. 

This moon, the same that followed her 
Among the shining orchard trees 

Where still her garments seem to stir 
The ghosts of ancient fragrances ! 



[ 149] 

That bird, the same that died of bhss 
Long since, but for a sweet hour sprang 

To life and song a night like this 
Where Mary Arden lived and sang ! 

We may not know what sort of song 

Lured here the prescient nightingale. 
Or whether it was fair and strong, 

Or fitted to a homely tale ; 
We only guess that some far voice 

From future ages to her rang, 
And bade her woman's heart rejoice 

While Mary Arden walked and sang. 



[150] 



IN HOLYROOD 

In Holyrood, up yellow stair 

I sought the turret chamber where 

On Summer evenings long ago 

The mandolin of Rizzio 
Made Mary music, rich and rare. 

And, pausing in the shadows there, 
Methought some echo of his air 
Along the halls came ringing low 
In Holyrood. 

Ah, 't was a sighing wind that bare 
The burthen of old heart-despair, 
And trembled at the casement so 
Like dying hope or love in woe, 
Remembering days when life was fair 
In Holyrood ! 



OCTAVES IN AN OXFORD 
GARDEN 



TO MRS. EDMUND D. BROOKS 

(On the Fly-Leaf of a Copy of the First Edition of the 
" Octaves in an Oxford Garden/') 

" Blest spirit, who with loving tenderness" 

Thus courteously saluted Angelo 

Gracious Vittoria : and my octave so 
One tender woman s loving soul would bless. — 
Soul, which in asking naught, doth all possess. 

Which, giving freely, all good gifts shall know. 

My rime, that unto you this book doth owe. 
Returns to you with gratitude^ s caress. 

December 25, 1903. 



OCTAVES IN AN OXFORD 
GARDEN 



The day is like a Sabbath in a swoon. Wadham 

Slow in September's blue go fair cloud-things 
Poising aslant upon their charmed wings, 

Stilled to the last faint backward smiles of June. 

Softly I tread, and with repentant shoon, 
Half fearfully in sweet imaginings, 
Where broods, like courtyards of departed kings, 

The old Quadrangle paved with afternoon. 

II 

No footfall sounds within the empty hall ; 

No echoes people corridor and stair ; 

The sunlight slumbers on the silent square, 
Forgetful of slow shadows by the wall. 
Yon is the passage where low lights do fall 

And linger longest (I have watched them there), 

Beyond which you will find a spot most fair, 
A comfortable and a holy spot withal. 



[154] 

III 

There dwells the very soul of quietness, 
Seclusion's spirit deep within the green. 
Secure from fame as some unsung demesne 

In far Ionian hills. There waits to bless, 

With her all-healing, mother-soft caress, 
The Sympathy of Trees, that friend unseen. 
Soother of moods, on whom all hearts do lean 

Sooner or later, and their cares confess. 

IV 

As one whose road winds upward turns his face 
Unto the valleys where he late hath stood, 
Leaning upon his staff in peace to brood 

On many a beauty of the distant place. 

So I in this cool garden pause a space, 
Reviewing many things in many a mood, 
Accumulating friends in solitude 

From the assembly of my thoughts and days. 



As here among the well-remembering boughs 
Where every leaf is tongue to ancient breath, 
Speech of the yester years forgathereth. 

And all the winds are long-fulfilled vows — 



[155] 

So from of old those ringing names arouse 
A whispering in the foUate shades of death, 
Where History her golden rosary saith, 

Glowing, the light of Memory on her brows. 

VI 

What hath she uttered that should make me 
dread — 

That brown-robed Abbess with her beads soft- 
told, 

Who hath her seat upon the fragrant mold 
And sees the gliding Centuries perfected ? 
Naught. Only good things saying, she, with head 

Bowed to her task submissively, doth fold 

An era by for every bead of gold, 
And smileth on the glory of the Dead. 

VII 

Here did Wren make himself a student home 

Or e'er he made a name that England loves. 

I wonder, as he watched yon chapel doves, 
If he did have some foresight of that dome 
On Lud's old Hill where now their coveys come, 

With them that bear his name, in lofty coves. 

I wonder if this straying shadow moves 
Adown the wall as then he saw it roam. 



[156] 



VIII 



Blake hither brought his book — to con the sky, 
Commanding squadrons of the upper seas 
That streamed, impatient of Time's slow degrees, 

Their pennoned fleets of phantasy on high. 

wind-shod Time, that we should bid thee fly ! 
Five hundred years good Bishop Wykeham's trees 
Down there at New have known such lads as these, 

And they are patient still and standing by. 



IX 



All things seem ordered sweetly in the Nature's 

- Calmness 

calm, 

Full measure of the even-marching years. 

This elm I love hath never fought with fears 
And sickening heartbreak ; but the steady psalm 
Of one who trusts not vainly issues from 

His quiet depth — such psalm as lifts and cheers 

Each tiny stalk or tender blade that rears 
A nostril to the breeze-bestowed balm. 

X 

Primrose, and Phlox, and Clytie (as I call 
The lady Sunflower, never to forget 
The faithful nymph she was — ah, yes, is yet !), 

These sway unto its heartsome rise-and-fall 



[157] 

With ivies undulating up the wall ; 

And thought, to inarticulate rhythm set, 
Joins harmony, while far the World's vain fret 

And discord dreamwise vanish from it all. 



XI 

Soon will sweet Primrose be a faded crone, 
Yet seeks she now nor flattery nor fame ; 
And Phlox upon the morrow lays no claim 

When her shed bloom shall be around her blown. 

This Beech, 'neath whom their many kindred shone 
As fair, hath ne'er heard any wish a name, 
And even he hath reckoned it no shame 

To live in silence and to pass unknown. 



XII 

This is my lost inheritance. I look Lost 

With brotherliest affections yearning 
forth 

To the flower-bearing sod. Oh, what is worth 
The strange estate of flesh I strangely took ? 
In the soft soil the garden breezes shook 

From the wall chink but now, there 's measure of 
earth 

To match my body's dust when its re-birth 
To sod restores old functions I forsook. 



[158] 



XIII 



Strange that a sod for just a thrill or two Vicissitude 
Should ever be seduced into the round 
Of change wherein its present state is found 

In this my form ! forsake its quiet, true 

And fruitfullest retirement to go through 

The heat, the strain, the languor, and the wound ] 
Forget soft rain to hear the stormier sound, 

Exchange for burning tears its peaceful dew ! 



XIV 



It was the lip of murmuring Thames Old Song 

- and a River 

along 

When new lights sought the wood all strangely fair. 

Such quiet lights as saints transfigured wear 
In minster windows crept the glades among. 
And far as from some hazy hill, yet strong, 

Methought an upland shepherd piped it there. 

Rousing a silvern echo in her lair : 
" Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my sony." 

XV 

My Spenser lay the dewy grass upon, 
His pages shone before me as I read — 
Like the gold daisies gleaming round his bed 

H's lantern verses upward to me shone. 



[159] 

End never yet his song's rich note hath known ; 
" Sweet Thames " ran softly by his burthen sped. 
And shall, while hymns are sung and prayers are 
said, 

Low chanting his glad Prothalamion. 

XVI 

I never thought until one night i' the The Same 
dark ®^ 

When one I love was on the labouring seas, 

How constantly the stars' white companies 
Stand watch o'er all — yea, when horizons stark 
Are swept of every other sign and mark 

So it were utmost desert but for these. 

(And then, I think, my spirit found its knees 
And asked them to guide well my dear one's barque.) 

XVII 

It is the same sky over sea and land : Constancy 

The same pure stars attend great London 

town 
That tremble where the Channel thunders down ; 

'T is we that vary, running on the strand. 

Life bounds no fresher from the eternal hand 
Here in the Wadham branches than out yon, 
Where blurs the dusty highway wide and wan : 

Good is within all, having all things planned. 



[160] 

XVIII 

There is a picture — you have seen it Ford Maddox 

P, Brown^s "Christ 

^^^ • washing the 

The Master at unwilling Peter's feet Feet of Peter" 

Ennobling evermore and making sweet 
Each humble service wrought with mind aloft. 
Such mystic splendour shines serene and soft 

('T was dreamt out through long years and made 
complete 

From visions ripe) that, turning thence, we greet 
A new world, where dull conscious self is dofft. 

XIX 

He who this limned is gone. They treasure The 

..,, Absence 

still 

The wooden wafer once he loved to hold 

Which (can we question ?) now his hand is mold 
Yearns ever for his touch of tender skill. 
This ochre, longs it not to meet his will 

About the head of Jesus aureoled ? 

And that sad patch of umber some slight fold 
Of Peter's garment would so gladly fill 1 

XX 

Even so our fancies' colours, keen of yore, 

When one we love lays by this earth-constraint. 
Upon our palettes do wax dull and faint, 

Fulfilling not commissions first they bore. 



[161] 

For he is gone, and never holy lore 

Nor shining nimbus of transfigured saint 
May anywhere the fragment ochre paint ; 

And the rich umber waits for evermore. 



XXI 

One time from that gray close I did St. Paul's 

emerge 
Wherethrough I had been toiling, and to me, 
Like some benignant rock above the sea, 

St. Paul's great brow above the mist and surge 

Loomed kindly, and methought did kindly urge 
All men up to it, till there came to be 
A hush on hearts, a deep tranquillity 

Of healing virtue, round the minster's verge. 

XXII 

Thus Friendship. As a sacred citadel 

Above the hurrying crowd of men it towers ; 
There in or sun or frost, or shine or showers, 

Invites to worship with no beating bell. 

This world's a city, and it loves full well 

The mid-street sanctuary that is ours 

Whither to steal away renewing powers 

Whose sources only at that Altar dwell. 

11 



[162] 



XXIII 



Some dust of Eden eddies round us yet. Bust of 

Some clay o' the Garden, clinging in 
the breast, 

Down near the heart yet bides unmanifest. 
Last eve in gardens strange to me I let 
The path lead far ; and, lo, my vision met 

Old, forfeit hopes. I, as on homeward quest. 

By recognizing trees was bidden rest. 
And pitying leaves looked down and sighed, " Forget." 

XXIV 

To one tired heart I said : If it be true Restoration 
That, in the sad much-winding of your ways, 
Your thread is broken out of other days. 

And you know not what joy is lost to you, 

I pray you, turn aside awhile and through 
This quiet garden think on some old place 
Dear to the child you were, and that loved face 

That once in many a labyrinth was your clew. 

XXV 

Fair crystal cups are dug from earth's Roman Giass- 

1 , ware pre- 

Old crust, served in the 

Shattered but lovely ; for, at price of all ^^'^'^^^^^'^ 
Their shameful exile from the banquet-hall. 
They have been bargaining beauties from the dust. 



[163] 

So, dig my life but deep enough, you must 

Eind broken friendships round its inner wall — 
Which once my careless hand let slip and 
fall — 

Brave with faint memories, rich in rainbow-rust. 

XXVI 

Tell them, sweet evening breeze poised Life's 

1 T Usurpation 

here, no less 
I love their memory whom thou goest to greet 
Out there at heaven's gate, but that I meet 

Less oft the idle thoughts of old distress. 

Tell them the thought of them still lives to bless. 
But since I learned how much, despite defeat. 
My life demands that I shall make complete, 

I must yield up my cherished loneliness. 

XXVII 

Something of sorrow am I not denied, — Traces 
Share of the earth 's old, universal pain 
I own, — though but as hillsides own the rain, 

Or solid sands the long wave's stroking side. 

Still, though no rains upon the steep may bide. 
And harmlessly the sea-floods rise and wane. 
The downward torrent-traces do remain, 

And sands bear record of the sedulous tide. 



[164] 



XXVIII 



Before an inn hearth's tale-begetting flame, The One 
Or sooth, or fable, yielded of the store 
A white old man from perilous country bore, 

I heard of a strange tree without a name 

Whose shade the brinks of fuming gulfs did claim 
And the precipitous torrents of that shore. 
Beauteous and straight it was, and uniflore 

With purest bud that e'er to blossom came. 



XXIX 

As those great petals burst asunder there, 

A wondrous fragrance on the breeze was fanned, 
Solace unique of that unfriendly land 

Wafted remote along the treasuring air. 

But then, the old man said with trembling care, 
A little raising his blue, withered hand, 
" The flower droops straightway ere it doth expand. 

And never another bloom that tree may bear." 

XXX 

Oh, sometimes, in the years since then, I too 

Through dangerous and deserted lands have wended. 
And many a stark and chasmy steep descended 

Which crumbling cataracts shed their vapour through. 



[165] 

But where such lone, mysterious blossom grew 
I have not sought to learn, by one more splendid 
Along the dimmest verges close attended — 

The all-enfolding, deathless love of you ! 

XXXI 

Early at eve on Onchan Head, because Separation 

The crimson lustre was upon the 
bay, 

And much bright melody began to sway 
Upward from gay pavilions, and there was 
None there to speak with in the music's pause, 

I sickened of the glory and turned away. 

Oh, that red sun had sealed a perfect day 
Had I but heard your low, sweet laugh's applause ! 

XXXII 

He is no lover of the sea who loses 

Sound of her voices, inland wandering. 

Still should her old melodious mystery spring 

Around him, wend he wheresoe'er he chooses ; 

And so within me rhythmic life refuses 
By any other pulse than yours to swing, 
Par from your friendship's ocean though I 
sing 

Where the hills tire and the rough pathway bruises. 



[166] 



XXXIII 



A great nelumbo heavy on the breast 

Of heaven's tranquil lake must be the moon 
Above this garden in the still night's noon, 

Bending the gold of her refulgent crest. 

Thus to the surface of these days of rest 

Through all my absent idlesse, late and soon, 
The thought of you doth blossom and the boon 

Of the dear face that waits me down the West. 



THE CITY 

" For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose 
builder and maker is God "... 



IN A COPY OF "THE CITY AND OTHER 
POEMS" 

(to MR. AND MRS. EDMUND D. BROOKS) 

Who sowed calm islands in the swelling sea. 
Hath scattered life with friends for you and me, 

NOVEMBEB, 1905. 



Persons 

UcHOMO, surnamed Abgar, King of Edessa in Meso;potamia. 

Cleonis, an Athenian icoman, his Queen. 

Ananias, a Chamberlain. 

Agamede. 

Stilbe. 

A Physician. 

Belarion. 

Body Slave to Abgar. 

A Messenger. 

Slave-Boy. 

Women, companions and attendants of the Queen. 

Soldiers. 

The scene throughout is an enclosed garden of planes and pome- 
granates some distance outside Edessa. The river Daisun, with 
occasional sails, and a winding military road, are seen at intervals 
in the rolling fields beyond the garden walls. Against the horizon 
in the left background arise the walls and towers of a Greco- 
Parthian city. In the middle background there is a massive gate, 
closed and barred; its hinge posts are termini carven with Janus 
heads. In the right foreground the portico of a summer palace in 
the Doric style projects into the scene through a wealth of oleanders. 
The centre is occupied by a marble dais surmounted by a long semi- 
circular Greek settle of stone, aud banked with luxuriant flowers. 
Near this, a sun-dial. 

The time is in the sixteenth year of the reign of the Roman 
Mnperor Tiberius, late in the spring. 

The action covers a period of one day from dawn to dark. 



I. DAWN 

A group of the Queens women attired in flowing 
white pepli, one bearing a lyre, some sitting, some lean- 
ing against pillars of the portico. Soft music. They 
sing to a slow measure. 

Chorus 

Of old it went forth to Euchenor, pronounced of his 

sire — 
Reluctant, impelled by the god's unescapable fire — 
To choose for his doom or to perish at home of 

disease 
Or be slain of his foes, among men, where Troy surges 

down to the seas. 

Polyides, the soothsayer, spake it, inflamed by the god. 
Of his son whom the fates singled out did he bruit it 

abroad ; 
And Euchenor went down to the ships with his 

armour and men 
And straightway, grown dim on the gulf, passed the 

isles he passed never again. 



[170] 

Why weep ye, women of Corinth ? The doom ye 

have heard 
Is it strange to your ears that ye make it so mournful 

a word ? 
Is he who so fair in your eyes to his manhood 

upgrew 
Alone in his doom of pale death — are of mortals the 

beaten so few ? 

weep not, companions and lovers ! Turn back to 

your joys : 
The defeat was not his which he chose, nor the 

victory Troy's. 
Him a conqueror, beauteous in youth, o'er the flood 

his fleet brought, 
And the swift spear of Paris that slew completed the 

conquest he sought. 

Not the falling proclaims the defeat, but the place of 
the fall ; 

And the fate that decrees and the god that impels 
through it all 

Regard not blind mortals' divisions of slayer and 
slain. 

But invisible glories dispense wide over the war- 
gleaming plain. [^Enter Agamede in the portico. 



[171] 

Agamede 

Go, gentle sisters, and sweet rest be yours. 
Ere noon comes hither Abgar's embassy 
From the great Healer in Jerusalem. 
Get what repose ye may, for Ananias 
Hath sent his courier to our waiting Queen 
Begging some converse here with her, and we 
Doubtless shall then be needed. 

Stilbe {stepping from amongst the women) 

Abgar sleeps ? 

Agamede 

Like a tired boy, Cleonis also rests. 

And the old doctor in his ante-room. 

The Queen commands me thank her faithful ones 

Who all night long this slumber have implored 

For Abgar's couch with lulling of their song. 

Stilbe 

Is this the morning? I began to think 

That, like Persephone, we, too, perchance 

Might have transgressed in this half-yearlong night. 

Green pomegranates being irresistible 

And the only cheer the dark earth offered us. 

Pluto provided ripe ones for his guest. 



[172] 

Agamede 

Yonder the city 's waking. Eunoe, 

Straight to thy bed. Dear child, thy blossom head 

Hangs heavy as the dewiest poppy ! Thou, 

Erigone, whose lyre hath brought the morn, 

And little Nyseis of the silver voice, 

Speed now while slumber broods above these halls 

And even Abgar sleeps. 

Thee, Stilbe, yet 
Would I detain a space. Some things there are 
Befitting us alone as nearest her 
And tenderest in her love to weigh together 
Of our Cleonis. [Exeunt Women, except Stilbe. 

Stilbe {coldly) 

You, being cousin to her, 
Have preference in her intimacy. Much, 
Therefore, I 'm honoured by your interview. 
Pray, madam, first, whose song was that we sang 
The last ere you dismissed us ? 

Agamede 

Abgar's song j 
Thou knowest he made it in the garden here. 

Stilbe 
I had forgotten Cleonis sings but love. 



[173] 

Agamede 

Yea, and a love the dream of which men die 
for! 

Stilbe 

And the Hfe of which, I see, they sicken of. 
The fighter for me, and songs of sounding war ! 

[A pause. 

Agamede 

Glaucon, my husband, died to save his king ; 

Yonder, amid the blossoms, lies entombed 

Our little child, our little Charmides. 

gods ! take not away my joy in her. 

This fair-faced creature I had learnt to love ! 

Stilbe, thou hast seemed like a fresher self 

To me a widow and bereft of youth 

In whom so many hopes have been consumed. 

My little sister left in Argolis 

Must now be tall as thou, a woman grown. 

\_Confronting her. 
Tell me, loved Stilbe, what hath stung thy heart 
That, since our summons, thy sweet lips so oft 
Speak bitterly ? 

Stilbe 
Stale sweetness oft turns bitter. 



[174] 

Agamede 

Thou art so fair ! Yet many a winged thrust 
At our sad, gentle Queen I hear of thee. 
Oh, hadst thou earher from Edessa come 
To stand beside her through this lingering grief, 
Thou, too, wouldst curb the quick scorn of the 
world ! 

Stilbe 

Thrice o'er these marbled pools the moon hath 

filled 
Since Uchomo she lured to dwell off here. 
While Ananais trudges to Judaea 
For Galilean charms. The very pause 
She claps upon our city gaiety. 
Cries out against her. With the king fled hither 
The town is like a tomb dead-garlanded. 
I, who this selfsame week was to have wed, 
Am like to die a virgin, being called — 
The maidens decked, as one might almost say. 
And the libation poised above the altar — 
Called with new relays to attend her spouse 
And sing these dull songs to him evermore. 
Belarion, too, our nuptial rites delayed, 
Grows angry in his speech. 



[175] 

Agamede 

Then thou hast speech 
With him ? 'T is of Belarion I would warn thee 
As one who hates the Queen and would rejoice 
To see the end of this long dynasty. 
How gains he access to thee, and for what ? 

Stilbe 

He is a man of promise. Heard you not 
What the oracle declared ? 

Agamede (after a pause) 

Who is this woman ? 
Not she who suckled at the same fond breast, 
Sicilian Praxinoe's, with her 
She rails on now — bred up in watchful care 
Her foster-sister in Athenian halls ! 

Stilbe 

Milk is not blood ; and even blood will chill 
Before a thwarted love — such love as mine ! 

Agamede 

Such love as thine ? Why, girl, thou 'rt mad ! Dost 

dream 
That ever love hath sprung from such a soul ? 

[Stilbe laughs scornfully. 



[176] 

Ah ! The old tale — that thou wast courted first 
When Uchomo to Athens came. Why, that 
Belongs among the old forgotten things. 

Stilbe {starting away) 

Oh, some remember still. Yea, even yet 

This royal pair among the oleanders 

Shall well remember ! [kGAMMi'E. follows her. 

Do not follow me. 
I, too, have biddings. Follow not, I say ! 
I '11 cry and start Edessa's dreamer up 
Where he lies dozing in her arms I I '11 shriek ! 

Agamede {in a low voice as they move into the trees) 

Poor, blighted flower ! What thou revealest me 
Confirms injurious whispers round thy name 
Of poisonous growths about thee, poisoning thee. 
I will know all. I will not leave thy side 
Till the last shred thou dost confess to me. 

\_Exeunt among the trees. 



[ 177] 

11. MORNING 

Four hours later. 

The Physician is discovered near the sun-dial, ner- 
vously pacing a short distance to and fro. 

Enter Ananias with attendants, from the gate which 
is swung open for him hy guards. 

Physician {starting towards him) 
At last I Thrice welcome home, Lord Ananias ! 

Ananias 

I greet thee. Pray, call not Cleonis yet ; 

My courier told me of her weariness. 

Sit here. How hath the King done in mine absence ? 
\_He hands the Physician to a place on the 
settle and remains standing. During the 
following he paces slotvly and firmly to and 
fro hefore the dais, pausing occasionally 
with military abruptness. 

Physician 

I scarce had hoped myself to have the honour 
Of your advices. The Asklepiad 
Came not along ? 

12 



[ 178 ] 

Ananias 

How doth my lord the King ? 
He hath not rashly left this healing place ? 
Be brief. How is his fever, sir ? 

Physician 

My lord, 
Last night 1 deemed his fever slower, stole 
Forth for an hour to offer up to Paion 
Such rites as the old, pious world pronounced 
For his disease, and left him soothed in sleep — 
Or so he seemed — the Attic women singing 
Hygeia's hymn, with paeans to the god ; 
And she, Cleonis, by his couch. — Ah, sir. 
She hath not left his side this many a week. 
But they together wander all the day 
About these gardens or within the palace ; 
And nights she lays her down beside his bed 
Upon her ready pallet, not content 
To let sweet slumber steal her cares away 
Till first she see him peaceful. Like a child 
Is she for the mild beauty of her love. 

Ananias 
I ask for news. Pray, sir, how is the King ? 



[179] 

Physician 

I left him with a sleeper's pulse, moist-lipped ; 
The low lamp softly shining, at his head 
His faithful Karamanian, on his breast 
The Queen's hght hand that gently rose and fell 
With his deep breaths, and all the medicines 
Of my prognosis ranged conveniently ; — 
For, though I follow Erasistratos, 
That learned doctor at Seleukos' court, 
Our art's chief glory, in him I love less 
What Hippokrates and the school of Kos 
Instilled, and rather take his slant to Knidos : 
Each humour of the four three changes hath. 
And each degree of change hath its own drugs. 

Ananias' 

Great Zeus ! I had not guessed that so profound 
My question was ! 

Physician 

In due course, Chamberlain. 
I, anxious, on returning through the halls, 
Hearing clear voices from the royal chamber. 
Sped thither. — One brief hour away, so long 
As might suffice to lay fresh myrrh and vervain, 
Erom Epidaurus which Cleonis hath 
For healing rituals, on Apollo's shrine. — 



[180] 

Found him, despite all previous reproofs, 

Risen from rest and pacing round his floor 

Dressed as for journeys, girded with his blade. 

The Queen, who calmlier looked, sat meekly by, 

And I did overhear much feverish talk 

Of dreams and sloth, and work and war ; and, last, 

I made it clear he sudden had resolved 

No longer here within this wholesome house 

To tarry, but so soon as you, my lord, 

Your grateful presence should again bestow 

Upon this troubled realm, he would return 

With all the court unto Edessa. 

Ananias 

Well, 
What more heardst thou a-listening ? 

Physician 

Only what 
One may while in surprise held hesitant. 
He spoke of these two months awaiting you 
And this Jerusalem thaumaturgus whom 
Strangely he sets much hope on ; but in chief 
He did reproach himself for idling here. 
For, " whom the gods will bow must face the gods 
With a self yet unbowed," quoth he ; " Both selves 
Of me are rotting here. What malady 
Save sloth consumes both soul and body too ? " 



[181] 

Ananias 
'T was wisely listened, and remembered well. 
Passing the rest, let us arrive at length 
To where thou vanqaishedst surprise. What then ? 

Physician 
I then, with my sick-room authority. 
Drew back the arras and appeared to them. 
Placed soporific leaves upon the brazier. 
Besought Cleonis leave us for her chamber. 
And proffered Abgar a composing draught. 

What think you ? Rather than accept my skill 
And the soft dulling ministries of drugs 
That bring the body rest, he spurns my hand, 
And rising violently on his bed 
Commands Cleonis stay and me depart ! 
I wavered 'twixt two judgments ; but I saw 
Such glance of anger under his dark brow 
I turned and left him in his weakness. Since 
All which I have been deep distraught to know 
How him I serve, and, I do swear you, love, 
I may best bring to reason. 

Ananias 

'Twill be hard. 
Exasperation is an angry wound 
Thy surgery but inflames, Asklepios. 
Keep thou remote from him : there 's means for thee. 



[182] 

Physician 

Thank you, my lord ! I am rejoiced to find 
Your first so like my last deliberation ! 
It will be best to leave him for a space, 
Perhaps until he send for me ; and yet 
I love him and I would not seem displeased. 

Voice of a Guard 
None pass without the royal sign ! 

Voice of a Messenger 

Behold it. 
\_Unter Messenger, in haste. Bows and presents 
despatches to Ananias. 

Messenger 

These from the prefect Mithradates — beg 
Instant reply. 

Ananias (Beads. Takes stilus and tablet from girdle 
and writes hurriedly) 

To Mithradates this. 

\_Exii Messenger. 
Here 's service for you if you love our lord : 
Read over this despatch and make it yours ; 

[ Writes. He gives the Physician the Mes- 
senger's despatch. 



[183] 

Then to the city post, seek out these men, 
Both veterans in the service of this house 
And scarred in old campaigns against its foes. 
Speak with them privily. Antigonus 
Will summon guards, and John the Magistrate 
Suppress the public brawl with sterner force 
Than this seal's lack would warrant him. 

[He seals ivith a ring two packets^ and gives 
them to the Physician. 

Physician 

This hour 
Doth Abgar with Cleonis haunt this spot. 
You '11 meet him here, my lord ; 't is better so. 
His humour is more genial in the air 
For taking news of ill. Commend my love 
With an apology to Abgar who, 
Knowing the pressure, will condone mine absence. 
One thing : Tell him not all at once ; but first 
Only as darkening probabilities 
Assert them, then — 

* Ananias 

'T is sixteen stadia thither, 
And thou must seek Antigonus by noon. 
Pray, get to horse at once. 

The Queen approaches ; 
She must not know the matter of our speech. 



[184] 

Physician 
I go. [Exit. 

[Enter Cleo'sis from the portico. 



Friend ! 



Cleonis 

Ananias (kneeling) 

Lo, I am returned, dear Queen. 



Cleonis {raising him, smiling sadly) 
What weary journeys we have all been taking ! 

Ananias 
I would all had such welcome at the end. 

Cleonis {seating herself upon the dais) 

These many weeks hath Abgar longed for you 
With a deep, earnest longing of the soul. 
A brief dull slumber torn from fever's rage 
Now binds him ; for his nights are tedious. 
You have been informed as much but now ? 

Ananias 

As much, 
But with more rhetoric. 



[185] 

Cleonis 

The poor old leech 
Is very learned, but his ministries 
Have not availed. I look with perfect hope 
Toward the arrival of the Healer. So 
Tell me of him, and of your travel, all, 
And Uchomo shall straightway learn from me. 

Ananias 

" All " is summed up in this : the thought of him 
Whose body's rest I 'd give my life to win. 

Cleonis 

Your absence lent us pause to measure you : 

Your putting by of prejudice, your pure, 

Yea, sacrificial friendship. Oft whole days 

As he hath paced these prisoning gardens round, 

Subduing his proud soul within a frame 

Inadequate, that he might bear the long 

And well-nigh insupportable delay 

Of the great Healer's answer, then of you, 

Of your long, tireless vigilance, your strong 

Mid-manhood's quiet, unprotesting love, 

To me he spake. And once he said, " Of such 

I '11 build my state when I am whole again ; 

Or, lacking others like him, base all there I " 



[186] 

Ananias 

Only the usual grace my service bears 

Of an hereditary loyalty 

To worth unusual. I served Bar-Abgar ; 

My father, his. I am a soldier, plain. 

And not much given to visions ; yet sometimes 

For Uchomo there 's bred in my regard 

A sudden tenderness for that he dreams, 

Moving along some higher plane than ours. 

And seeks to found our city in his dreams. 

Cleonis 

And never will our dull world learn that dreams 

Are all that fact hath ever issued from. 

But yet you have not spoken of the Healer. 

I had dared half-believe that he would come 

Prepared to make our palace his abode, 

As ran our invitation sent by you. 

Much did this thought alleviate his pain 

While Abgar yearned for that strong being's touch. 

Delay suits not his temper, and I fear 

The issue. — He but follows you ? His train 

Could not accommodate them to your haste ? 

[_A pause. She speaks with growing anxiety. 
How long must we await him ? 



[187] 

Ananias 

Cleonis, 
Forgive that I ne'er learned the courtier's phrase 
To sweeten bitter news ! Your heart is strong, 
Made so in many troubles early borne. 

CLEONis {smothering her fear) 

Only as it must seem for Uchomo. 
I am too weak a woman to bear well 
A loved one's pain. 

Ananias 

His pain so much is thine 
That 'twill be bravely borne, dear Queen. Know, 

then, 
The Hebrew prophet, called the Nazarene, 
Declined Edessa's princely offer. 

Cleonis {leaning forward in excitement) 

Ah, 
Avert such woe, Athena Paionia ! 

Ananias {approaching her as he speaks, and seating 
himself at the opposite end of the dais) 

This is the hardest part of all my mission. 
Compared to this, those stony Syrian hills 
Are smoother than the broad Palmyran road. 



[188] 

I know not of what power that Healer worked, 
Nor if he wrought at all the cures they tell. 
Having seen his face but once. He had a look 
Most kind. I thought of Uchomo's fair brow. 
And of the steady light of his deep eyes 
When he discourses of his ideal city. 

Cleonis {meditatively) 
They say he, too, hath powerful enemies. 

Ananias 
From whom the court of Abgar promised refuge. 

Jerusalem swarmed. From up and down the 

kingdom 
Thronged the barbarians for their sacrifice. 
It seems their god hath rites that once each year 
In the mid-spring exact their celebrations ; 
And I must hit it at the very time 
When all their hostels choke, and every hole 
Teems with their tribesmen gaunt from hill and 

plain. 
It was most fortunate I had of you 
The letter to the lady Berenis. 
She, as Tiberius' niece, holds high estate 
Amongst the Romans of Jerusalem. 
As for the servants of our retinue, 



[189] 

They needs must fare ill, like the pilgrims. Me 

She of her generous hospitality 

Most courteously those days did entertain 

In honour of the Osrhoenic House 

Whose latest prince by fair repute she loves 

For his just laws and life. 

From her I heard 
Much of this preaching carpenter who builds 
Such wondrous edifice of charity 
Amongst those fierce uncharitable Jews, 
And something of his marvellous cures, on which 
I pressed much question while within her gates. 
Berenis, having friends among his school. 
Herself a half-disciple, unrevealed 
For reasons politic, obtained me one 
Philip, a humble Galilean, who 
Through the packed alleys entered where he taught 
And learned an hour when we more privately 
Together might converse. I sought him then. 
This Philip guiding me, in Bethany, 
A hamlet up an olive-sprinkled hill 
Just out the eastern walls. There found we him 
Surrounded by the trees and some few friends. 
The village gentry whose loved guest he was. 

^Beckons to an attendant and takes a 'parchment 
scroll from a casket in the attendant's hand. 



[190] 

Cleonis 
Tell me of his appearance. What said he ? 

Ananias 
He had prepared this scroll and gave it me 
With courteous words, yet, as I after thought, 
Most singularly free from deference 
Eor one who ranks with artisans. His look 
Betrayed no satisfaction with our suit ; 
Yet he did emanate a grave respect 
Which seemed habitual, much as Stoics use, 
Yet kinder ; and his bearing had more grace 
Than any Jew's I ever saw before. 

As for his words, I own I scarce recall them. 

And have been wondering ever since that I, 

Bred at a court and tutored to brave deeds. 

Should be so sudden silenced. For I stood 

Obedient to unknown authorities 

Which spake in eye and tone and every move. 

In that his first mild answer of refusal. 

He seemed to have foreknowledge of our case ; — 

Mayhap the Galilean gave him news 

Of our perplexity and long delay 

In matters urgent to the city's welfare 

Which I had hinted of to Berenis. 

He looked on me with such compassionate gaze 



[191] 

I had an impulse to renew my plea ; 
But he, as if he read my inmost mind, 
Bade me tell Abgar to contemplate this 

[Indicating the scroll. 
And shortly all should be made clear to him. 

Cleonis 

Are you he who would yield his life to win 

Peace for his tortured master's body ? Shame ! 

Oh, had I gone I would have so besought him, 

And stormed him with the passion of my prayers, 

That he had never dared refuse me ! Love, 

Love 't was you lacked to burn your words in him ! 

Had you loved Abgar even as duty bids. 

Even as your father loved Bar-Abgar when 

He made the pilgrimage to Epidaurus 

And slept upon the slain goat's skin, and begged 

Asklepios' image for his master's life. 

And so prevailed ; — oh, had you loved one half 

As yonder Karamanian slave who stands 

All night on guard at Abgar's weary head ; — 

Or even one little, little part as I 

Who, a poor helpless girl, can only stroke 

The feverish temples, hold the throbbing wrist — 

Oh, you had begged with tears, and he had come 

And healed the hidden canker of our lives I 



[192] 

Ananias {arising) 

My love counts not its duties ; nor, I think, 
Is love summed up in all its victories : 
'T is larger, and includes defeat. In this 
All I could do I did, since there was power 
Would dumb the boldest suitor. Written here 
Is his deliberate determination. 

Cleonis (arising. Her fingers are strained together) 

I '11 go myself and grovel on my knees ! 

He who hath made the leper whole, hath caused 

The blinded eyes to flood with heaven's light. 

And, ye gods ! they say restored the dead — 

Him shall I travel to by night and day, 

And, having found, shall warm so with my tears 

That his indifference shall melt away 

Like April ice upon Hymettus. Oh ! 

[She sinks, weeping, to the seat. 

Ananias {gently) 

Cleonis, I have twice thy years. I know 
Both love from hate, and duty from indifference. 
'T was only love for Abgar took me hence 
In perilous times ; and it was not indifference 
Detained the man : a thing to ponder on. 



[193] 

Cleonis 
Show me the way to him, I do command you I 

Ananias 

Your journey to him would be all in vain, 
Your prayers and tears in vain, unless, as some 
He lived among believed, he was a god 
Who may be sought by sorrow anywhere. 



What mean you ? 



Sav on. 



Cleonis 

Ananias 
He is dead. 

Cleonis 

So are the gods, then ! 

Ananias 



Even as I tarried the last day 
At the kind house of Berenis, we heard 
He was condemned to death. My mission done, 
I bade my horsemen make all ready, spurred 
Out of the city, and with haste departed. 

13 



[194] 

Cleonis 

What, waited not to search the matter out ! 
Subsequent haste might well have bought you hours 
To learn this master's fate ! How then, say you 
They killed him ? On what charge proved they his 
guilt ? 

Ananias 

That I know not. It seemed a common clamour 
For blood — not blood of guilt, but innocence. 
Their god must have, it seems, a human victim 
Along with the twice seven-score thousand lambs 
They slay at each of these strange feasts of theirs. 

Cleonis 
What time stayed you within their savage city ? 

Ananias 

Three days. My interview was Wednesday. On 

The Friday as I left the lady's gate. 

She with her household gave us company 

Unto the open highway, and there called 

Afresh on us the favour of the gods 

To cheer our long return. 

Just down the street 
We, not ten paces from the friendly door, 
Beheld a noisy rabble that so pressed 



[195] 

The narrowing way, we reined our steeds aside 
To wait its passage. 'T was a dreadful sight : 
A criminal condemned by Roman law 
To drag the wretched beam he was to die on, 
As is the usage towards the baser sort 
Who should not stain the honourable sword, 
Surrounded by a hateful mob kept off 
By the centurions of the procurator. 

Cleonis 

What poor, doomed wretch was he ? — Oh, 't was not 
— not ... 

Ananias 

As they drew nearer, from my horse I saw him. 

And it was he ; but that I only learned 

By the loud banter of the bullying crowd. 

He had transgressed some law those Hebrews have. 

And went to pay for it upon the cross. 

As the way widened past the high-walled house 

Of Berenis, the throng thinned, and I saw 

Plainer the moving figure of the man 

And the huge beam laid on him. Suddenly 

Prom the great gate I saw a form dart forth 

Straight towards him, pause and seem to have some 

speech 
With the condemned, as, by old privilege. 
Sometimes the pious ladies do with those 



[196] 

Who tread the shameful road. Her speech was brief. 
She turned, and, as I saw 't was Berenis, 
Towards me she came, and her eyes, wet with tears, 
Smiled sadly, as she said these final words : 

" Such shame a mighty purpose led him to. 
Yet he shrinks not, but steadfast to this end 
Inevitable hath he come his way. 
A woman of my house was healed of him 
By kissing once the border of his garment. 
Take your King this, and say that as he dragged 
His cruel but chosen cross to his own doom, 
Some comfort in its cooling web he found. 
And left a blessing in its pungent folds." 

[He takes a small square of linen from his hosom. 

A keenly odorous linen from her hand 

I laid within my bosom next the scroll. 

And so we said farewell, and I spurred on, 

The hoarse mob's laughter down the blazing street 

Making us glad to quit the fearful city. 

[He gives the linen into the hand of Cleonis. 

Cleonis 

Oh, let them never leave their quiet hills. 
These prophets that dream well for all the world ! 
Let them remain in mountains far from man 
Where nothing fiercer than the lion roams, 



[197] 

Communing with the kindly elements — 

The earth that is their mother, and the winds ' 

That are such spirits' brothers, and the fire 

Of splendid storms that like their words breaks forth, 

And waters that flow out like their great love ! 

They are of other worlds and strangers here : 

Let them remain in mountains — or in gardens ! 

Ananias 
Ay, but we need such in this world of men. 

Cleonis 

Ye need them as the tiger needeth blood ! 
Come, show me one great soul that taught you good 
Whom your wild world would have; one bold emprise 
Without Protesilaus at the prow ? 

The Carthaginians exiled Hannibal ; 
The Romans, Scipio ; Cicero they stabbed ; 
Athens gave Socrates the poison cup 
Because she feared his truth ; Jerusalem 
Doth crucify him who would make her whole. 

Ananias, this thy tale for me 
Brings ominous forebodings. Pray, beseech 
With all your long-used freedom that the King 
Go not yet to the city. I have heard 
Slight rumours of a restless populace 



[198] 

That, like caged eagles, fight the hand would free. 
And look suspiciously on Uchomo. 
Is it not true that gathering troubles brood 
Within the city ? 

Ananias 
Yes. 

Cleonis 

I felt it. Now 
Give me the whole truth. 1 've the heart for it. 

Ananias {handing her the Messenger's despatch) 

This word but now despatched to me tells all. 

\_A pause. She reads. 

Cleonis 

'T is all my fears condensed into a line. 

Now must your prayers with mine urge him remain. 

Towards evening, at the old accustomed hour, 

Here meet us and conclude your narrative 

Which I will give to Uchomo complete 

Up to the Healer's shameful death ; and that 

Will I in silence leave till custom dull 

The lesser sadness. 

Are the guards informed ? 
Is all precaution taken ? 



[ 199 ] 

Ananias 

All is ready ; 
But I go now to double-warn his watch 
Against the morrow. Be not anxious. We 
Who long have served this house will prove our love. 

\_Exit. 

Cleonis 
Bear with nie, Ananias. My heart aches. 



[200] 



III. AFTERNOON 

Eight hours later. 

The full court is assembled, tvith Abgar, Cleonis, 
Ananias, and Attendants. Afterwards, 
Agamede. 

Abgar is seated at the end of the stone settle nearest 
the portico. His right arm rests on the hack of 
the seat, its hand supporting his head. His gaze 
is fixed upon the distant city, so as to leave 
discernible only the left side of his face. His 
soldierly short black hair and strong profile are 
accentuated by the eager forward thrusting of 
the neck. A flowing white chlamys is throivn 
aside from his left shoulder, revealing a severe 
military dress. The free hand rests upon and 
clasps the hilt of a sword suspended ai the 
hip. 

Cleonis sits full front, a little removed from Abgar, 
on the settle, her hands folded before her, and 
her head resting somewhat wearily against the 
high bach of the seat. Her garment is a pep- 
lus of azure wool. 

Ananias sUs behw her on the steps at her right, his 
gaze directed to Abgar. His attitude, that 
of interrupted rmrration, presents the right 



[201] 

side of his face and form prof led against the 
oleander leaves. A scroll lies open in his 
hands. 

The Slave-boy stands in waiting at some distance on 
the ground to the left of Abgar, immediately 
behind whom stands his great Body Slave. 

In the middle background, grouped in the foliage, stand 
the Queens tvomen in fresh garments of various 
bright colours. 

Armed guards are stationed in the extreme back- 
ground. 

The soft light of advancing dusk fiUs the garden^ but 
the undulating plain seen through the trees, and 
the tvhite walls of the city, are suffused with rich 
sunlight. 

Music of lyres. The women are singing. 

Chorus 

^gina's foam is high and wild 
Where Pan immortal sits enisled ; 
But thou and I with flying oar 
Seek Psyttaleia's sacred shore. 

The City of the Violet Crown 
Well knows that rocky island's frown ; 
But thou and I together learned 
What fires upon her altars burned. 



[ 202 ] 

Oh, many a sail goes gleaming there 
Bound for some olive-garden fair ; 
But thou and I made fast to her 
And found her cypress lovelier. 

The shrines of Aphrodite lift 
Their smoke in every village-rift ; 
But thou and I remote from man 
Propitiate the Woodland Pan. 

[As the song ends, Cleonis waves dismissal 
to the women. 

Abgar, 

More music while I think. Some martial air. 
There 's one of Alexander's men. Sing that. 

Cleonis (speaking over-shoulder to the women) 

That song of Arbela. 

{To herself) 

Unsoothing sound ! 

Chorus 

I see the Macedonian's foes 
Where Zab, the fatal river, flows ; 
A million, chariot and horse, 
And spearmen of the Persian's force 



[ 203] 

Orontes and the Euxine gave, 
The Oxus and the Caspian wave ; 
Jaxartes, Kashgar, Indus, far 
Swell the bright rushing tide of war I 

I see the Persian innermost 
Of all his vast assembled host. 
Around him in protecting groups 
Legions of mercenary troops : 

Melophori, and Mardian bows, 
Albanians, Carians interpose, 
With Indian elephants, between 
The monarch and his foe unseen. 

A score and five the nations are 
Preceded by the scythed car. 
And Cappadocia's cavalry 
For numbers like the waving sea. 

Who comes upon them ? O'er the plain 

The Macedonian sweeps amain ! 

I see his phalanx solid-speared. . . . 

Abgar {arising suddenly) 

'T is thus a world 's won ! Alexander led 
But two-score thousand men, but them he led ! 



[204] 

Ha, how the many-captained Persians ran 
Before that Godlike youth ! 

\_He unsheathes his sword and diagrams on the 
ground. 

Darius' centre, 
Bared of the Bactrian cohorts at his left 
Who would outflank the slantwise charging right 
Of Macedon, exposed both front and side 
To Alexander's horse and spearmen. Here 
Plunged in that son of Philip, whose assault 
Pilled the great King with terror, so he fled 
Treading his crumbled empire in the dust. 

\He drops to his seat, taking former ^position. 
Yet Alexander and Darius both 
Are dead. And what avail the conqueror 
Issus and Arbela ? — Do they comfort him 
Down there among the shades ? What victory 
Won Alexander that his naked soul 
May deck him with where dwelleth Socrates ? 

\_A pause. He turns, quietly, addressing Ananias. 
Conclude the Hebrew's letter, Ananias. 

Ananias {reading) 

"As to the part of your epistle which 
Concerns my going hence to visit you, 
Know that I have a mission to fulfil 
In mine own city, and must here remain 



[205] 

Till all its ends be satisfied. Yet you 
Of your infirmity shall know full cure, 
And those most dear to you have peace. 

"Farewell." 

Cleonis 

See, he doth promise healing ! Reads not more 
On any margin, or betwixt the lines, 
To indicate how such a joy may be ? 

Ananias 
Nay, I have now read every word to you. 

Cleonis {hending forward) 

Hand me the letter. 

[Ananias arises, and gives her the scroll. 
Why, these very lines 
We did pass over lightly, they seemed charged 
With hidden meaning. \^She reads, thoughtfully. 

"Abgar, forasmuch 
As ye believed on me whom ye knew not. 
Shall happiness be yours. For it is wrote 
Concerning me that they should not believe 
Who have beheld, that those who dwell afar 
And see not might have faith and life abundant." 

See you not something there, Abgar ? 



[206] 

Abgar 

Much. 
Did I not ask for music, hearing that ? 

I shall be healed ! The ebbing springs of life 

Will flow again as full they flowed of yore ! 

My city, my city ! thou shalt know 

Again the joyous tread of other days, 

When all thy booths and palaces and shrines 

With multitudes of helpless, longing folk 

First knew me theirs to build, protect, and love ! 

I have not yet resolved the Healer's words 

Into clear meaning ; but their crystal soon 

In the still cup of contemplation may 

Give up its precious drug to heal our cares. 

What said he of it, Ananias ? " Shortly 

Should all be clear that 's written in this scroll " ? 

Ananias 

Those are the words, my lord, in giving me 
His answer spake the Nazarene. 

Abgar 

Consider. 
I offered him my realm's protection ; peace ; 
A sanctuary of philosophy ; 



[207] 

And a disciple not without an arm. [^4 pause. 

Now, more than ever, do I long to see him ; 
What won my reverence now provokes my love. 
His city hates him. Oh, that he were here ! 

[He springs to his feet, and paces up and down 
the dais. 

Ananias 

I think, my lord, he weighed all this, so firm 

His speech revealed him, as if all debate 

He, silent, had passed through at once forever. 

Abgar {eagerly) 

How well thou hast divined this sort of soul ! 
Planted upon his rock, he sees all else 
As drift and wreckage of the stormy seas 
That surge around him, yet can touch him not. 

There is but one decision for such man. 
And, after that, concession, compromise, 
Expediency — these enter not at all 
Into the fabric of his meditation. 
To such death is not. For untainted is 
The source of life, and solid is the rock. 
To those who go down in the trough upon 
Their own poor broken spar, that rock is hid 



[208] 

With him upon it, and they call him dead. 

I will send other embassies to him — 

Not importuning him, but to have words 

To ponder on, or, maybe, go myself, 

For I already feel renewed within 

By the great soul of him who hath opposed me. 

Cleonis {approaching Abgar, and laying her hands 

in his) 

Uchomo, hast thou all the love for me 
That thou didst woo me with those perfect days 
Amid the cloves and laurels where the sea 
Elung its M^hite arms among J^gina's isles ? 
Still the old love that bore me in our barque 
Ear on those sunlit waters where but faint 
The cry of men, and even the gleam of sails, 
Came to us in our niche among the hills ? 

Yes, yes, I know ! I ask to be assured 
By the old light rekindled in thine eyes. 

Uchomo, the constancy of love 

Hath not performed its service until pain 

Doth weld both hearts inseparably. 

Not all 
At once to-day did I repeat to thee 
Of what our Ananias hath brought back. 



[209] 

Abgar 
I felt that more would come in love's own time. 

Cleonis {taking the linen from her bosom) 

This brought he back to thee with him. It 

bears 
The dying benediction of the Man. 

She who bestows it, lady Berenis, 
Invoked his healing power upon its folds. 

Abgar 
His city slew him ? 

Cleonis 
Took away his life ! 

Abgar {receiving the linen) 

Not that ! For he shall live forever here, 

And in the bosoms of philosophers. 

Such life shall grow and blossom, and bear 

fruit — 
Yea, here in mine own city shall it grow ! 

[^A pause. He turns away suddenly, with out- 
spread arms, and uplifted head. 

14 



[210] 

I feel it now ! All through these withered veins 
I feel it bound and glow ! life, life, life ! 
\^He clasps Cleonis in his arms. 
[ Voices at the gate. Enter from thence Aga- 
MEDE, exhausted. Her long, white gar- 
ment of the morning is stained and disar- 
ranged, and her grey hair is loose. She 
walks uncertainlg towards the dais. 
[Cleonis, in surprise, runs and supports her in 
her embrace. 

Agamede {breathless) 
Yet not for this — this even — deem friendship vain, 
And sister a light name ! — Vow that to me ! 

Cleonis 
Sweet sister Agamede ! 

Abgar [to Slave-hoy) 

Fetch her wine. 
[Boy brings wine, of which Agamede partakes. 
{Lifting his hands to her) 
Be sure of us, dear Agamede ! All 
Assembled here are bound to thee by love 
And thy long, tender years of care for us. 
The world is full of beauty, strength, and love ! 

[Cleonis leads Agamede to a seat, and sits 
beside her comfortingly. A pause. 



[211] 

Agamede {to Cleonis) 

What words and looks are these from Uchomo ? 

Oh, was it all a frightful dream that I 

Since dawn this day have fought with Nemesis ? 

Cleonis 
That was thy dream, dear one. 

Abgar 

Some dream this was. 

Agamede 

Thou splendid youth ! What god hath wrought on thee 
Whilst I was dreaming ? Came he hither, then, 
That Galilean Healer long desired ? 

Abgar 
Thou seest me healed by him. We dream no more. 

Agamede {passing a handover her eyes) 

Oh, but I dreamt not ! 

{Reluctantly) 

Abgar, of thy house 
One hath turned traitor and conspired with those 
Who long have wished thee ill. More, too, I find, 



[212] 

King : lords Umbar and Athmantides 
Have been beset by the wild populace 
And are imprisoned by them in the Tower. 

Abgar 
How learn you this ? 

Agamede 

Fresh from those scenes I come. 

Cleonis and Abgar 
What ! From the city thou ? 

Cleonis 

What stains are these ? 
What woe hath overtaken thee ? 

Abgar 

Spare not. 
A great peace dwells in this abode. Not thou, 
O wife of Glaucon, canst bring anguish here, 
Nor bow our hearts with any woe but thine ; 
On which, if aught there be, the kingdom shall 
Be spent for remedies. Speak slowly all. 



[213] 

Agamede 

It is my woe, mine own familiar woe 
As I had learned it in forgotten ages. 
Two kinds of woe which I had known before 
Shall never seem so old a woe as this ; 
And there is ransom from all other kinds, 
When we go back into the earth ; but this, 
Once known, shall be a terror in the soul 
And in Elysium even cloud it o'er 
With memories that Lethe cannot quell ! 

Ananias 
'T were well to speak directly of this matter. 

Agamede (to Abgar) 

Forgive, Abgar, first, that how and why 
I came into the city, or with whom, 
I now conceal. Let it suffice that one 
I followed fleeing thither who confessed, 
In part because I persecuted so, 
In part that, sure of their complete design, 
The traitors fear not now if it be known. 

What I found in the city first I tell : 

Of all your officers of public works 

Who build and broaden, cleanse and sweep away. 

These twain have most incurred the rabble's wrath. 



[214] 

The stewards Umbar and Athmantides ; 

Because their duties — as chief overseers 

Of the new sewers — do seem sacrilege 

In that the city's soil so deep is dug 

That antique gods of stone, once worshipped there 

By the old Syrian fathers of the folk, 

Have been disturbed in their forgotten slumbers. 

And certain who oppose themselves to all 

The strange reforms that are pushed forward so, 

Have used this pretext of indignant gods 

To stir the people and arrest the works. 

Abgar 

How comes it Delius lets the mobs prevail? 
Where is Belarion that such passion rules ? 

Agamede 

Belarion 't is — I choke to say his name ! — 
Who stirs them to revenge. 

Abgar 

Athmantides 
And Umbar have their sovereign's instant care. 
My chariot and guard within an hour 
Shall bear me to Edessa. 



I 



[215] 

{To Slave-boy) 

Hasten, boy; 
Bid Moschus have the new Arabians combed. 
And all prepared for travel in the hour. 

{Exit Slave-boy. 
What ! is it thus, my city, whom these dreams 
Have glorified with perfectness ? And ye, 
people of my ceaseless watch and care. 
Could ye not be content a little while 
Till my poor body was made sound for you ? 

Cleonis {in pain) 
Uchomo, I forbid thee leave our sight ! 

Ananias 
Nay, Abgar, go not ! 

Cleonis 

Thou wilt straight undo 
All the slow betterment of these long weeks. 

Ananias 

My word commands, being given authority. 
The seal I bear persuades with eloquence. 



[216] 

Abgar {sitting. He looks towards the city) 

I am the King. Prom my deliberation, 
Revolved in silence when the vrorld 's asleep, 
I am not easy moved by hate or love, 
Nor do I rise by impulse to bold deeds ; 
But it hath ever been my studious care 
So ripened for emergency to be 
That through my meditations naught can fall 
I may not welcome with the fittest deed. 

Cleonis 
Yet go not ! Oh, thou knowest not ! 

Ananias 

Our tongues 
Till now were justified in secrecy. 
I must inform you, Abgar, that a band 
Of impious men who fear nor god nor man 
Plot for your life. A treble guard is placed 
Around these walls lest any of their spies 
Steal to you unperceived ; while yonder now 
Within the city trusty officers 
Under the Prefect Mithradates' eye 
Take evidence to blot out that perfidy. 



[217] 

Agamede 

For days hath nested 'twixt these garden walls 

A withered and implacable Erinys 

Ready to give the signal for assault. 

It wanted only Ananias' presence 

To ripen it, and they intend this night 

With all the force Belarion can assemble 

To make attack. 'T is no mere mutiny. 

Beginning such, the poison hath been spread 

Till now a revolution threatens all. 

This flew I back to tell the sentinels 

And Ananias' guard which paces here. 

Cleonis (as though suddenly enlightened) 
Where is Stilbe? 

Agamede {shrinking) 

There is no Stilbe more. 
Abgar {'placing one hand out upon the heads of the two 
women, who have drawn together, and with the 
other inviting Ananias up to a seat beside him) 

Peace, peace ! They have but once to see their King 
Strong as of old, and riding with his guard ! 

{To a Slave) 
Ho, Imbros, run to Moschus and make speed 
With preparations for departure. Standards, 



[ 218 ] 

Torches and all the trappings of the mews 
Provide my escort. See all busy. Thou, 

( To Ms Body Slave) 
Gyges, make ready the new armour — that 
Tiberius had forged and sent to me 
From Capri. — They will cheer the casque of gold. 

[Exit Slaves. 
You, faithful friends, and thou, Cleonis, hearken. 

\Puring the following, the scene gradually dark- 
ens till the garden is left entirely in the dusk. 
Then a few stars shine through the trees, and 
the moon begins to rise. 
Last night, to complement two wondrous dreams 
Had on the two preceding nights, there came 
A third, most vivid, and most wonderful. 

In the first vision like to this I dreamed : 

I stood upon a height. Spread out below. 

Dark, silent, shapeless, a vast city — dead — 

Where in far ages of this furrowed world 

Strong men and women took their taste of life. 

All now was desolation absolute ; 

And through that wreck of fortress, mart and 

fane, 
And fallen mausoleum crowded o'er 
With characters for evermore unread. 
Only the wind's soft hands went up and down 



[219] 

Scattering the obliterative sands. 
I, led in trance by shapes invisible, 
Approached a temple's splendid architrave 
Half sunk in sod betwixt its columns' bases, 
And there by sudden divination read 
The deep-cut legend of that awful gate : 

APPEASE WITH SACRIFICE THE UNKNOWN POWERS. 

Between the roofless, tottering pillars there 

A countless flock had fed the holocaust — 

Numberless innocents drenched the steaming altars. 

Outpouring their propitiative blood. 

And prayers and tears and cringings of a world 

Through them did seek the appeasing way — in 

vain. 
And the black night came down upon my dream. 

Next night I found me in a twilit place 
Wherein the same compelling, gentle hands 
Held me. And from mine eminence I saw 
A newer city builded on like dust — 
A trodden sand that could afford to wait. 
Streets hummed, and multitudes on multitudes 
Along their river-quays, in highways broad, 
Or up their little ramifying lanes, 
Unceasing plied their single life away. 
They toiled, or played, or fought, or sued the 
gods, 



[220] 

Absorbed each in his own pecuUar lust, 
As if there were no morrow watching them ; 
Yet each was happier in the morrow-dream 
Than ever in all achieved yesterdays. 

I was so high above them as to see 

Their little deeds and mean anxieties, 

Wholly, as one surveys a mound of ants 

At their laborious atom industries. 

Above them spread the splendid heavens filled 

With palpitating sunlight ; all around, 

The sources inexhaustible of life. 

And plenitudes of peace. But there they swarmed, 

Striving — some bravely ; offering — some in truth ; 

But all with inward thought and eyes on earth. 

And so I saw them grow, and grieve, and die. 

And as I looked, I saw a man who long 

In upward meditation on his roof 

Sat all alone, communing with his soul. 

And he arose, and presently went down, 

Down in the long black streets among his kind. 

And there with patience taught them steadfastly. 

But, for the restless souls he made in them. 

They turned and slew him and went on their 

ways. 
And a great fog crept up and covered all. 



[221] 

Again the third time I was lifted up. 

A mighty, living, beautiful walled town, 

A-wave with trees, lay shining on the plain. 

And underneath her walls a river glided, 

Safe bearing her full many a peaceful sail. 

And there lived folk who all day worked and 

sang. 
And folks that to and fro sped silently ; 
And here and there some sat apart and thought. 
From all whom throbbed a joy in unison 
With the warm earth and her enfolding heavens ; 
Through all, the strong, perpetual streams of 

life 
That through the universe unceasing flow. 
And this dream ended not with cloud or mist, 
But slow receded in its radiance 
Till it grew small as towers and sails and stream 
That whiten yonder to the rising moon. 
And as it went I heard a voice that said : 
" Thou, Abgar, art the King of cities three : 
The Past, the Present, and the Yet-to-Come. 
Out of the Past the Present by slow pain 
And undiscerning upward agonies ; 
Out of the Present, by as many throes. 
The city of Celestial Harmony." 

Then faded all, and I awoke and saw 
Through the wide window of my prison here 



[ 222 ] 

My city gleaming on its tree-plumed levels, 
And waiting in its troubled sleep — for me ! 

Fear not for me : I go unto the city. 

[Cleonis clings to Abgar's necJc. He, erect, 

the left arm holding Cleonis, the right 

pointing to the city which is now full in the 

light of the risen moon. 
[The distant noise of preparation for departure 

fills the garden with sound. 



[223] 



IV. EVENING 

An hour later. 

The only light is that of the moon, which enfilades the 
little open spaces among the leaves and along the 
ground, and shines full over the open country 
beyond the garden. 

The garden is empty of people. There are sounds of 
stamping hoofs, shouted orders, hurried footsteps, 
within the palace and beyond the wall. In the 
pauses of these sounds far in the distance from 
the direction of the city come indistinct murmurs 
like human cries. Presently a faint bugle-call 
thrice repeated. The sounds decrease. 

Agamede and Cleonis in the shadow of the portico. 
Agamede stands with arms stretched out towards 
the oleanders, and is softly singing. 

Agamede 

Grow, grow, thou little tree. 
His body at the roots of thee ; 
Since last year's loveliness in death 
The living beauty nourisheth. 



[224] 

Bloom, bloom, thou little tree, 
Thy roots around the heart of me ; 
Thou canst not blow too white and fair 
From all the sweetness hidden there. 

Die, die, thou little tree, 
And be as all sweet things must be ; 
Deep where thy petals drift I, too, 
Would rest the changing seasons through. 

Cleonis 

Let us sit here and wait for Uchomo. 

\_They sit on the steps of the portico. 
These last strange quiet moments spent with thee 
Have wrought some change in me, I know not 

what. 
Whereas I was half-girl, this day of storm, 
woman of sorrow, hath made me calm as thou ; 
Hath shown me heights and deeps, and swallowed up 
All fear of death or life. We are secure. 

Agamede 

Not in an hour was wrought this change in thee. 
Thyself hast wrought it day by day in toil 
For what thou lovest, forgetting what thou art. 
These final moments show thyself to thee. 



[225] 

Cleonis 

Thou hast known all these things for many years. 

\_Enter Abgar, armed, tvearing his golden helmet, 
[He bends over Cleonis, who arises and joins 

him. They descend to the garden. 
[Agamede remains on the steps a moment, her 
hands extended as in blessing towards the 
receding pair, then steals into the palace. 

Abgar 

Dost thou, love, feel a strange, new sense of peace ? 

To me it is as if another air 

Had suddenly enveloped our sad earth. 

Cleonis 
The atmosphere of oceans tranquillized. 

Abgar 

Wherein our barque doth move on steadily 
As by some other force than chance of winds. 

Cleonis 

In the old days when far we searched the seas 
In our light-skimming pinnace, thou and I, 
Sometimes it bended in and out the isles 

15 



[226] 

And no wind seemed to have the care of it. 
Then thought I, like a foolish, dreaming girl, 
That beautiful, strong hands beneath us bore 
Our barque of love. 

We have lived inland long. 

Abgar 

To me there is no inland, having thee ! 

Our love 's a golden sea set thick vrith green 

And aromatic islands whose shores know 

Such wreckage only as bright, tide-plucked flowers 

That grow, unguessed, too deep for touch of storm. 

Come to our garden-seat. The moment nears 
When we must for a little while be parted. 

[They mount the dais and sit. 

\_A pause, during which the murmur from the 
city is renewed. 
He said that shortly all should be made clear. 
I think his words grow plainer to me, yet . . . 
Is there no other way our world will learn ? 

Cleonis 

Only through abnegation's sacrifice ; 

Only renouncement, that shall raise dead hearts. 

None may believe who have beheld, because 
This mortal vision makes them blind of soul. 



[227] 

Men may not see with soul and body both : 
This now I see who was till now one blind, 
And under the charm of fear. The man spake well. 

Abgar 

Not distance, nor yet death, shall separate 
The souls of those whose vision is made clear. 
Lo, he abideth with us evermore 
Who would not come to us the way of flesh, 
And in the spirit makes us whole. 

That mind 
Hath turned my course of longing utterly : 
I longed for healing only of this flesh 
That I might serve my state — asked not for more ; 
Yet how in his refusal he transcends 
My widest prayer ! 

Cleonis 

" Of your infirmity 
Shall you know yet full cure ; and those have peace 
Who are most dear to you." 

That peace is here. 

Abgar 

love, I never saw thee till this hour 

So beautiful ! How all the world is changed ! 

Let us grow old together in this way. 



[ 228 ] 

Cleonis 

Always together, well or ill betide : 

Promise me this, love — till death's own hour ! 

Abgar 

Yea ! For no ill can ever meet us so ! 

\_Sound of the chariot at the gate. 

Cleonis 

I have thy promise. Listen, at yon gate 
Moschus is standing with the chariot. 
I go with thee ! Oh, never, never apart 1 

Abgar 

I will return to thee to-morrow, love. 

Stay me not thus ; the numbered moments fly. 

Knowest thou not I am made strong for this ? 

Cleonis {clinging to him) 

But thou hast said ill cannot meet us so. 
Together, always, even to the hour of death ! 

Abgar 

Yea, that I know ! Come, then. Not all earth's power 
Shall snatch us twain asunder. To the city ! 



[ 229 ] 

Cleonis 
It is the promise : Peace and life abundant. 

{They descend to the ground, and are inter- 
rupted in their exit by the Body Slave, 
who enters, running, from the palace. 

Slave 
Flee, flee ! Armed bands of thrice our guard's full 

strength 
Ride here ! 

[He runs centre, mounting the dais and shading 
his eyes towards the city. 
I see their helmets on the plain. 
King, your chariot quick ! and southward turn : 
Thapsacus is our ancient ally. Flee ! 
That friendly city may be reached in safety. 
One of her trading craft lies on the river 
Waiting for dawn to slip her anchorage. 
Moschus and I will bear you with the Queen 
Swift charioting thither. 

Abgar 

To Thapsacus, 
To the old, noble town where Xenophon 
With the Ten Thousand crossed Euphrates' flood, 
I, fleeing at night away from foes unseen ? 

{He mounts the dais, his arm still encircling 
Cleonis. They look towards the city. 



[ 230] 

Return thou to thy duty at the postern, 

And fortify thy heart with the calm night. 

The guards without are ready ; we within 

Are confident and undisturbed. [Uxit Slave. 

Cleonis 

Look, love. 
How beautiful ! Along that road of gold 
Which in and out among the new-sown fields 
Mocks with its shining course the winding river, 
They sparkle like heroic panoplies, 
With helmet, shield, and spear beneath the moon. 

Abgar 

It is indeed, most beautiful and strange. 

[^Thei/ stand some mometiis in silence, facing 
the city and the open country, and watch- 
ing the advance of the troops. Again the 
sullen murmur of the city. Twice or 
thrice Cleonis lifts her hand to the scene 
and turns her head half round to Abgar. 
\The sound of galloping hoofs groivs near. 
The horses at the gate paw and neigh. 
There are movements among the guard, 
and within the palace. 
[A red light flares from one end of the city. 
city ! many a time and oft have I 
Preserved thy peace through toil and bitter pain. 



[231] 

Turning away the foeman from thy gates ! 

Oh, I have loved with yearnings infinite 

Even as a father pitieth his child ! 

But what can save thee from thyself? Not love. 

What needest thou ? What wilt thou of me more ? 

My life ? Can that avail thee in the end ? 

If mortal vision make thee blind of soul 

Can death — can that appease, and bring thee sight ? 

\_There is an onset at the gate. 

[_Enter women from the left, flying into the palace. 

First Woman 
Flee, flee ! 

Second Woman 
There 's murder at the gate ! 

Third Woman 

Oh, flee ! 
[The gaie hursts open, hut is still defended. 

The fighting is along the wall. 
\_Enter Ananias from the gate, wounded. 

Ananias 

Where 's Uchomo ? Where 's Cleonis ? Where 's my 
King? 



[ 232] 

We cannot hold them off. They beat us down 
Like sudden whirlwinds. Oh, I think I die. 

[Cleonis tears a strip from her role; then, as 
if by a fortunate recollection, plucks the 
square of linen from the bosom of Abgar, 
and binds it over the wound with the 
strip. 
Oh, cowardly to yield thee up a day 
Prom my long watchful care ! Oh, base to turn, 
When needed most, even at thy own command ! 

Abgar {supporting him tenderly) 

Dear friend, thou art the other side the loom. 
Thou canst not see what wondrous web is wrought 
By this blind weaver Fate ! All 's well with us. 

Ananias 

Two months — two months away from thee ! Indeed 
There was delay — the mountain roads were rough. 
But — pray, forgive me — this I spake not of : 
I made not haste sufficient. 

Thanks, dear Queen. 
Your touch is like my Chloe's. 

This, see thou — 
It was among the hills of Lebanon 
We met the robbers — on our homeward journey. 



[233] 

I had a wound of them. And even now 

It breaks afresh — before Belarion's blade. 

Oh . . . oh . . . forgive me, Queen, I brought not 

back . . . 
Brought not ... the Healer. ... All I could ... I 
did 

\^He falk, dying, into the arms of Abgar, who 

lays him gently upon the dais at his feet. 
\_The conflict ends suddenly. 

Voice of Stilbe 

The gate ! The gate ! Edessa shall be free ! 

[Belarion bursts through the gate wUh soldiers, 
in the midst of whom, borne aloft on the 
shoulders of slaves, enter Stilbe clothed in 
white and gold, and bearing garlands. 

Stilbe 

Hear Ares ! Spilth of Persian vintages. 
And splendid altar-garlands, laurel and rose ! 
Thighs of a thousand bulls, great Artemis ! 

[In passing, flings a garland to Abgar. 
Thy roses I return thus, Uchomo ! 

[She is borne laughing across the garden. 
Ha, but once more Edessa shall be gay ! 
Yet will I give command that every Spring 



[234] 

One night my women shall remember thee, 

Queen, with love-songs in the garden here. 

\_Exit into the palace. 

l_The soldiers of Belarion ^11 the scene. Some 
with torches pass into the palace, as though 
to take possession. In the midst of them, 
enter the Physician, in terror. 

Physician 

Drive me not thus, I say. 'T is ill respect 

To one of my position. ( Catching sight of Abgar.) 

dear King I 
Speak not reproachfully that I did fail 
To notify Antigonus and John. 

1 met an ancient actor on the road 
Who read a trilogy of ^Eschylus ; 

And " Prove thyself the Paion of this dread," 

So ran the line, on which I, pondering, came. . . . 

A Soldier (urging him on) 

Come, thou old prattler, show us to the treasure. 

[Exeunt, into the palace. 

Belarion 

The hour's come round. Here, brave guards of 

Edessa ! 
Looks he too frail to fight and live like us. 



[ 235 ] 

He there of the bright eye and crimson cheek ? 
*T is fine life in a garden with a woman ! 
His creatures in the city can pull down 
And build up as he bids them, spite of all 
The rites and usages of gods and men ! 

Behold the man. What shall we do with him ? 

Soldiers 
Kill him ! 

Belarion 

Ay, kill him ! But not instantly. 
Let him, and her who styles herself our Queen — 
The Greek wench there — let them acquit themselves. 
What word, King ? 

\_In advancing, he stumbles over the dead hody 
of Ananias. 

Ah, the old dog 's licked his last ! 

Abgar 

No word have I for thee to pluck at, thou 

Who murderest beauty, truth, and all fair things ! 

No word have I ; but o'er that faithful man 

Who gave his life to cure his King's unrest, 

Have I a more than word for thee. That 's death ! 

\JELe steps forward quicHy, unsheathing his 
blade, and strikes Belarion a mortal bloiv. 

[Belarion falls, groaning. 



[236] 

Belarion 

Up there, ye cowards ! See my vengeance full ! 

\_He dies. 

[Abgar, defended at the rear hy the stone settle, 
protects himself and Cleonis during an 
attack of the soldiers, who fall back as if in 
awe of his commanding front. 

[During the pause Agamede, in silence, forces 
her wag through the ranks, and joins 
Cleonis and Abgar on the dais, 

Cleonis {pointing to the body of Ananias) 
" And those most dear to you have peace." 

Thy blade ! 

[Abgar hesitates, then yields her his unsheathed 

sword. She lightly steps downward and 

lays it upon the body of Ananias, then 

returns to Abgar, and they stand defenceless, 

facing the soldiers. 

Abgar {half turning toi^ards the city, from which the 

red flame breaks afresh and irradiates his helmet 

of gold) 

Together, love, we go unto the city ! 



[237] 



NOTE 

Eusebius Pamphili, the fourth-century church historian, 
cites the public archives of the city of Edessa as authority 
for the story of Abgar's appeal to Jesus. He relates that 
Ananias was sent to Jerusalem with the following letter : — 

"Abgarus, King of Edessa, to Jesus the good saviour, who 
appears at Jerusalem, greeting. 

" I have been informed concerning you and your cures, which 
are performed without the use of medicines and herbs. For it is 
reported that you cause the blind to see, the lame to walk, do both 
cleanse lepers, and cast out unclean spirits and devils, and restore 
them to health, who have been long diseased, and raisest up the 
dead ; aU which when I heard, I was persuaded of one of these 
two, namely, either that you are God himself descended from 
heaven, who do these things, or the son of God. 

" On this account therefore I have wrote to you, earnestly to 
desire you would take the trouble of a journey hither, and cure a 
certain disease which I am under. For I hear the Jews ridicule 
you, and intend you mischief. My city is indeed small, but neat, 
and large enough for us both." 

A paraphrase of the reply of Jesus occurs in the drama in 
this volume. The promise of cure at the end of this reply is 
more definite as recorded by Eusebius ; but since the subse- 
quent fate of the king is obscure, no detailed tradition is 
violated in the present working out of the story. 

There is also a tradition that the napkin of Veronica (or Bere- 
nice) came into the possession of Abgar, it having thence gone 
through many hands to its present resting-place at Eome. 
In the drama advantage has been taken of this legend to 
work out the fulfilment of the healer's promise. To com- 



[ 238] 

plete the harmony of the story, it only needs to assume the 
identity of Ananias and his retinue with the " Greeks " 
alluded to in the twelfth chapter of John's Gospel : — 

" And there were certain Greeks among them that came np to 
worship at the feast. The same came therefore to Philip, which 
was of Bethsaida of GaKlee, and desired him, saying, * Sir, we 
would see Jesus.' 

" Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again Andrew and 
Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying : — 

" ' The hour is come that the son of man should be glorified. 
Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth 
much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he that 
hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.' " 



SONNETS 



[241] 



SONNETS 

LIFE'S TAVERN 

Night-refuge, set aloft this travelled hill, 

'T is deemed by many a lodger but an inn ; 
Others look round them better and scarce fill 

Their first cup ere its mystery doth begin. 
And they are led by some divine desire 

Where, midmost of an inner room, there bends 
Clear flame on golden altar, to vrhich fire 

A wide-eyed vestal changelessly attends. 
And most, so led, have joy to serve that light 

And with the jealous priestess vigil keep ; 
But woe to any wearying neophyte, 

And woe to him who serves with eyes of sleep : 
To such is she more bitter than to those 
On whom, unlit, her doors forever close ! 



16 



[242] 



SULTAN'S BREAD 

Remote behind the Sultan's palace wall 
That silent rises out of teeming Fez, 
A foreign guest, who oft broke bread there, says 

On6 day at food a morsel was let fall ; 

And Abd-ul, keen of eye, did gently call 

Devout slaves to restore the slighted shred — 
So prized in his religion is mere bread 

To the great lord of that imperial hall. 

Up to the table of this life we sit. 

With sultan some, and some with tribesman placed. 
The fare is wheat or barley on our plate. 

And as we break the brittle loaf of it 

'T is well to think what fragments we do waste 
Which our companions may deem consecrate. 



[243] 



WITH A COPY OF THE MONA 
LISA 

'T IS said of Mona Lisa, that those years 
She gave us that we might behold her face 
In all its indefinable rare grace, 

As on the immortal canvas it appears, — 

'T is said those were from trouble, and from tears. 
Exempted years ; and that, all through the place 
Where Leonardo painted her, the days 

Found ever scents that charm, and sound that cheers. 

Dear one, no Leonardo paints thy smile ; 
Pew flowers, and little music, oft there be 
To charm away the world's anxiety ; 

Yet, oh, thy patient face hath all the while 
A more mysterious loveliness than stirs 
The heart of him who hath seen only hers ! 



[244] 

THE REZZONICO PALACE 

(" A Roberto Browning, morto in questo palazzo ") 

Low stars and moonlight beauty disavow- 
That death has ever known her ; but around 
Her melancholy portals only sound 

Of waters makes her music ; and the brow 

Of stately wall records the legend how 

" Died in this palace " a poet Love once crowned. 
Here the cold Angel that strong harp unbound : 

How chill and silent seem her chambers now ! 

World, if ever moon should wander here 

Where builds my heart its palace for your song, 
And find such tablet in the outer wall. 

The poet dead, the chambers still and drear, 
Let not its hollow beauty win the throng 
To reverence, but let it perish all ! 



[245] 



MOTHERS AND SISTERS 

Mothers and sisters, whom no sacrifice 

Dismays, nor whom your long, laborious hours 
Do anywise appall, ye are the powers 

By whom the swift are girded for the prize 

They reach in the light of your believing eyes. 
Ye are the hidden oil the shrine devours — 
Soil of the garden whence the great rose flowers — 

The silent force that bids a star arise. 

Ye ask of men nor honour, nor regret, 
Nor memory, save one's whose love is all. 

Renouncement ? Living daily the divine ! 

Effkcement ? Still the world your names shall call : 

Monica was the mother of Augustine ; 

Pascal had Jacqueline — Renan, Henriette ! 



[246] 



AFTER READING "THE GOLDEN 
TREASURY " IN GREEN PARK 

Off Piccadilly with its pavement cries, 

Its maddening monotone of wheel and hoof, 
Here in Green Park primeval summer lies, 

How near, how yearning, yet how far aloof! 
O city, symbol of a world that still 

Heedless of beauty under heaven rolls ; 
And thou, blithe meadow all with larks a-thrill 

Like poetry, that pasture of great souls — 
Ye twain so sundered shall forever dwell, 

A tumult and a blessing side by side : 
Here, as to toil-worn Argo once befell 

A singing island on a thundering tide, 
Where men might stretch them out in glad release. 
We too, much-wandering, hail this hour of peace ! 



[247] 



TO GEORGE CRABBE 

Dusk falls, and through the deepening silence where 

Red afterglows yon ashen roof do paint 
Whose dormer children's tapers gild so fair, 

Far vesper chimes disperse their music faint. 
Beneath an ancient arch the river turns 

Full of his inexpressive melody : 
With tenderest longing my whole being yearns 

To set his old, imprisoned story free ! 
Unto this gloaming world, thou, Spirit sweet. 

With me art come ; thou art of village things 
A low-voiced, love-enfolding paraclete 

Who soothest all their sleepy murmurings, 
And lurest from river, chime, and thatchen stead 
Tales of the inarticulate, and the dead. 



[248] 
BONINGTON 

(1801-1828) 

Who mourns his life was brief? He who forgets 

Work is the master's measure, and not years ! 
There on his sands that trailed their Norman nets. 

Far from the fluctuant city's joys and fears, 
Or in the long Louvre's golden-glorious streets, 

Prodigious in accomplishment he dwelled : 
A Chatterton of fancies, colour's Keats, 

Swift visitant, by other worlds compelled ! 
Much beauty had this boy to leave on earth ; 

Grieve not, for he did leave it, hurrying hence 
To some more radiant art, some starred rebirth 

Where Truth most needed his soul's eloquence, 
And where he toils those stately minds among 
Who dare glance backward smiling, and with song. 



[ 249 ] 



ORPAH 

My heart is with thee, Orpah 1 Meekly thou 
Out of the tender chronicle dost wend 
Back, lonely, unto Moab. Wordless friend, 

By those great tears, and that averted brow, 

(If anywhere thy loving spirit now 

My backward-turning heart's long cry attend !) 
I swear to thee soul-homage to the end. 

And speed thee my allegiance in one vow : 

" Silently I from out Love's chronicle 
Will wend alone : of me is little need. 
Silently will I go, and leave her this 

Sweet other friend, whose passion words can tell." 
— Orpah, know that thou art blest indeed, 
For thou couldst weep — thou hadst Naomi's kiss ! 



[250] 



A MOTIVE OUT OF LOHENGRIN 

Unearthly beauty of soft light persuadeth 
This castle which to shadows did belong ; 
And through its farthest vaults sweet mellow song 

The silence of my wintry halls upbraideth ; 

Gently as saffron dawn that smiling fadeth 
The sable, yielding hours, these search along ; 
And with them, souls of roses dead — faint throng 

Of odours of old years that all-pervadeth. 

Lady, this thing I speak not — do not fear it. 
'T were more than friendship, yet no better name 
Dares my most grateful heart's allegiance claim 

Lest this, as I do think, be brother-spirit 

To him, swan-brought to Brabant's castled shore, 
Who, named aloud, was lost for evermore. 



[351] 



THE MYSTERY OF BEAUTY 



For whom is Beauty ? Where no eyes attend 

As richly goes the day ; and every dawn 

Reddens along green rivers whereupon 
None ever gaze. Think, could earth see an end 
Of all the twilight lovers whose thoughts blend 

With scents of garden blooms they call their 
own, 

Would not as close the yellowest rose outblown 
Be, after them, the unmurmurous evening's friend? 
Then wherefore Beauty, if in mortal eye 

That loves them stars no challenge read to shine, 
And all the wonder of a sunset sky 

Wax not more wondrous for such smile as thine ? 
Why, pray, if not for Love which cannot die — 

This old earth-loving Love of thine and mine ! 



[252] 



II 

When we two from our Summer hills have passed, 
And Autumn burns beneath thy praise no more, 
Nor any Winter's raving at our door 

Shuts each within the other's heart more fast ; 

Neither Spring's roses learn what lips thou hast- 
Oh, then this thing called Beauty to its core 
Our wedded souls shall penetrate before 

One thought unto Eternity is cast ! 

Then shall we know the violet's pretext ; learn 
More definite a promise of the rose. 

And its fulfilment ; when the maples turn, 
Be part of all the glory among those ; 

Or help the May with her uncoiling fern. 

And breathe the trillium open where it grows ! 



[253] 
THE COAL BREAKER 

(PENNSYLVANIA) 

This is the house where, up from ages gone, 
Huge forests, root and leaf and bough and bole. 
With every bend of breeze and tempest-roll 

Preserved in crystal from earth's distant dawn, 

Again to light laboriously are drawn. 
No continent's tumultuous throes control 
Their phalanx more : they are black seams of coal 

And are upheaved by human will and brawn. 

But see, here in this ogre's castle weaves 
A magic power to make those forests glad 
And charm away their thousand age's sleep. 

For more than all the beauty once they had 
Returns, with song of bird and rush of leaves, 
In the bright waving hearth-fire calm and deep. 



[254] 
THE STATUE OF LIBERTY 

(NEW YORK HARBOUR, A.D. 2900) 

Here once, the records show, a land whose pride 
Abode in Freedom's watchword ! And once here 
The port of traffic for a hemisphere. 

With great gold-piling cities at her side ! 

Tradition says, superbly once did bide 

Their sculptured goddess on an island near. 
With hospitable smile and torch kept clear 

Por all wild hordes that sought her o'er the tide. 

'T was centuries ago. But this is true : 

Late the fond tyrant who misrules our land. 
Bidding his serfs dig deep in marshes old. 

Trembled, not knowing wherefore, as they drew 
From out this swampy bed of ancient mould 
A shattered torch held in a mighty hand. 



END OF VOL. I. 



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